Foreign News

Boris Johnson To Be Fined Over Lockdown Parties

Written by Bunmi Abdulraheem

Prime Minister Boris Johnson will be fined by the police for attending a birthday party thrown for him during a Covid lockdown.

No 10 confirmed he would receive the fixed penalty notice for going to the hour-long gathering in the Cabinet Room on 19 June 2020.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak and the PM’s wife, Carrie Johnson, have also been notified they will get fines.

It comes as part of a Met investigation into illegal parties in Downing Street.

Mr Johnson’s fine makes him the UK’s first serving prime minister to be sanctioned for breaking the law.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, Scotland’s First Minister and SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon, and Wales’ Labour First Minister Mark Drakeford are among those calling for both the PM and the chancellor to resign.

And all the main opposition parties in Westminster have demanded Parliament be recalled from its Easter break.

But Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries defended the PM for attending the event, tweeting: “It was a brief gathering in the Cabinet Room, less than 10 minutes during a busy working day.”

She added Mr Johnson was “at his best when delivering on the priorities of the British people, which he will continue to do”.

Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross – who at one stage had called for the PM’s resignation over the parties – also said “it wouldn’t be right” for Mr Johnson to go while there was war in Ukraine.

BBC