British Prime Minister Boris Johnson answers questions in the House of Parliament in London, Britain, on January 26. He received an investigative report on Monday into a scandal known as "partygate." Photo by Hugo Philpott/UPI |
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Jan. 31 (UPI) -- An investigative report given to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday says that parties held by Johnson and attended by various officials in 2020 during the country's COVID-19 lockdown reflect a "serious failure" in government.
The report, compiled by senior civil servant Sue Gray, outlines a number of criticisms over the parties, which were being held as Johnson's government imposed strict lockdown orders nationwide to contain COVID-19 in the early months of the outbreak.
The report notes that "a number" of gatherings "should not have been allowed to take place or to develop in the way that they did."
"At least some of the gatherings represent a serious failure to observe not just the high standards expected of those working at the heart of government but also of the standards expected of the entire British population at the time," it states.
Gray's report also notes "failures of leadership and judgment" by Johnson's office and Britain's Cabinet Office.
Gray said that she was "extremely limited in what I can say about those events and it is not possible at present to provide a meaningful report setting out and analyzing the extensive factual information I have been able to gather," according to Sky News.
Johnson was expected to acknowledge the report on Monday when he addressed the House of Commons. He faces a firestorm of criticism and calls for his resignation over the gatherings, in the scandal colloquially known as "partygate."
A redacted version of the report was expected to be posted to the U.K. government website later on Monday.
Britain's Labor Party has called for it to be published in full with accompanying evidence. The Metropolitan Police last week said it has started its own investigation into the lockdown violations to see if any criminal laws were broken. That investigation slowed the release of the report.
"At this stage, we will need to consider what might be appropriate, and we will be discussing with the independent Cabinet Office team in due course about what might be appropriate," a spokesperson for Johnson said, according to The Guardian. "But at the moment it's unclear how the ongoing Met police investigation might interact with any further work on that."
