While it has been expected since last week, Sue Gray’s report on the Downing Street parties Prime Minister Boris Johnson allegedly attended during the lockdowns may not be released on schedule.
He was expected last week, then Monday, Wednesday, Thursday… In the United Kingdom, the days pass and the report by senior civil servant Sue Gray on the parties in Downing Street in which Boris Johnson would have participated has still not been released.
It is however ready since the middle of the week, reports our correspondent in London, Emeline Wine. But he’s being peeled by the police, which itself opened an investigation on some of the parties at the Prime Minister’s residence. The Metropolitan Police asked Sue Gray to ” make minimal references to the events covered by the judicial investigation so as not to prejudice the integrity of the process. And this when she had assured at the opening of her investigation that the conclusions of the internal investigation could be published.
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The publication of this report on the starting pots, garden parties and Christmas or birthday parties organized in the main residence of the head of government in 2020 and 2021 has kept the press and the British political class in suspense for several days. But it is therefore a largely watered-down report that risks being unveiled, deprived of its conclusions on the events retained by the police as the most likely to have breached the confinements. Unless its publication is suspended until the conclusions of the police, which can take several months.
Suspicions of concealment
Immediately, the opposition parties demanded its publication, in its entirety and without censorship. On Twitter, the leader of the SNP independence party in parliament, Ian Blackford, lamented “ what looks more and more like a concealment of the truth “. The families of the victims of the coronavirus are also offended. For the spokesperson for the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice association, the police have “ shattered public trust, first by refusing to investigate these flagrant breaches of the law, and now by calling for another inquiry to cover up the most serious illegalities that have occurred in Downing Street “.
These parties have plunged Boris Johnson into a serious crisis which threatens his retention in his post, the calls for the resignation having multiplied even in the conservative majority. Many members of his camp are waiting for the publication of the internal report to decide whether or not to try to oust him by means of a vote of no confidence.
Even if the controversy paralyzes the action of the government, Boris Johnson naturally takes advantage of this delay, he who refuses to resign for now and as public interest in ‘Partygate’ begins to wane.