He handed over his ministerial diaries, which featured details of all his meetings including visitors to Chequers, to the lawyers, who while conducting the “disclosure review” decided they were duty-bound to raise the potential breaches of the rules. Sources said that no minister was involved in the decision to refer Johnson to the police. The revelations came to light only because Rishi Sunak’s government agreed to foot Johnson’s legal bills for the Covid inquiry, the Guardian was told. Rachel Johnson, the journalist and sister of the former prime minister, said on LBC that “all rules were followed whenever I went to Chequers”, adding: “If has questions to answer, he will definitely be answering them.” They include regular meetings with civil servants and advisers.” “The events in question were all within the rules either because they were held outdoors or came within another lawful exception. Mr Johnson’s lawyers have tonight written to the police forces involved to explain in detail why the Cabinet Office is entirely wrong in its assertions. “For whatever political purpose, it is plain that a last-ditch attempt is being made to lengthen the privileges committee investigation as it was coming to a conclusion and to undermine Mr Johnson. It read: “No contact was made with Mr Johnson before these incorrect allegations were made both to the police and to the privileges committee. Johnson and his wife, Carrie, who is expecting the couple’s third child, and his eighth, repeatedly stayed at the country home during the first lockdown when rules forced people to stay at home and explicitly barred them from mixing with other households.Ī statement from Johnson’s office said his lawyers had written to police to “explain in detail why the Cabinet Office is entirely wrong in its assertions”. The Metropolitan and Thames Valley police forces have confirmed they are considering the evidence of potential lockdown breaches between June 2020 and May 2021 at Chequers in Buckinghamshire, and allegations about Johnson’s behaviour in Downing Street over the same period. However, the development, revealed by the Times, puts further pressure on Johnson, who remains an MP and is fighting for his political career. His team called the referral a “clearly politically motivated attempt to manufacture something out of nothing”. The former prime minister, who quit last July in large part due to the revelations of a string of lockdown-breaking gatherings at Downing Street that became known as the Partygate scandal, has written to the Cabinet Office denying breaking strict lockdown rules. They raised the issue with senior officials in the Cabinet Office, who then referred the matter to police as they were obliged to do under the civil service code, and also to the privileges committee, which is investigating whether Johnson lied to the Commons over Partygate.
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