29th March 2022
The ‘Partygate’ problem has come back for both the Prime Minister and those who work(ed) with him in Downing Street.
Perhaps he – and his political and media supporters – had hoped the fog of war in Ukraine would obscure this ongoing political crisis from view.
But: no.
It is here again – and in this latest stage there are fixed penalty notices for a number of Downing Street staff.
These – in effect – fines appear to be just the first round, and it may be that further penalties are issued.
There may even be one issued to the Prime Minister.
Currently Downing Street is maintaining that no rules were broken – even though these fixed penalty notices mean that the Metropolitan Police have reasonably concluded after investigation that offences have been committed.
Perhaps Johnson and his staffers want ‘their day in court’ before they accept any rules were broken.
This is all engrossing political drama – even political soap opera.
So it is important to not overlook why any of this really matters.
It matters for two reasons.
First, it is about legality.
Those in government are not above the law – and certainly not above the coercive restrictions that almost-casually imposed upon the rest of us during lock-down.
(By ‘casually’ I mean that the rules were imposed often without proper parliamentary debate or scrutiny and were often published at the last moment before taking effect.)
Second, it is about accountability.
The Prime Minister expressly told the House of Commons that rules were not broken and that he was unaware of the pandemic of partying in Downing Street.
On the face of it, it looks as if the Prime Minister was lying.
Of course, in the real world, politicians lie all the time.
But, taking such a cynical view at its highest, there should still be some adverse consequence to a Prime Minister misleading the democratic house of parliament.
‘Partygate’ is only incidentally about parties – the triviality of the circumstances co-exist with serious issues of legality and accountability.
And that is why it has not been obscured by the fog of war.
The problem of legality and accountability is still there, and it needs to be addressed.
And until and unless the problem is addressed, the problem will continue to de-stabilise British politics – because it is not really about partying at all.
**
Thank you for reading.
This blog needs your support – for these free-to-read law and policy posts take time and opportunity cost to put together, as do the comments to moderate.
So for more posts – both for the benefit of you and for the benefit of others – please support through the Paypal box above, or become a Patreon subscriber.
***
Comments Policy
This blog enjoys a high standard of comments, many of which are better and more interesting than the posts.
Comments are welcome, but they are pre-moderated and comments will not be published if irksome.
For more on this blog’s Comments Policy see this page.
You are absolutely right. It is not about partying. It is about telling lies to Parliament, legality and accountability. What is deeply depressing is how much and to what extent Tory backbenchers are and have been in denial. My own MP in Dorset, a first time parliamentarian, (who succeeded in place of Sir Oliver Letwin, a decent man though I disagreed with his politics), is a Brexiter (although this is not a headbanger Brexit constituency) and has already sullied his own reputation by supporting the Paterson debacle, (how many of them must regret that). First, he wanted Sue Gray’s report to be published before he would make a decision to send in a letter to the ’22 and then, naturally, he insisted on the Met investigation being completed and now, of course, feels it is an inopportune moment to defenestrate Johnson whilst he is heroically and singlehandedly leading Europe if not the entire free world against Putin.
That it is and has always been about honesty, integrity, legality and accountability appears to count for naught. Self-interest, self-interest, self-interest, then Party and at a very long distance Country, with honour and integrity so far over the horizon as to be invisible as guiding principles. No wonder young people are disenchanted with the system. It would take a very significant swing to return anything other than a Tory in this constituency, but I think Chris Loder MP might just manage it. He no longer responds to my letters…
Last year, more than 133 thousand British citizens signed a petition to make a new criminal offense of lying to parliament:
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/576886
The response was – and I am quoting – “The Government does not intend to introduce legislation of this nature. MPs must abide by the Code of Conduct and conduct in the Chamber is a matter for the Speaker.”
The rest of the government’s response is worth reading – if for no other reason then as an exemplary demonstration of “weasel words”.
Conduct in the chamber is clearly not for the speaker. He has made the limits of his own power very clear on a number of occasions when asked by opposition members to ensure a Minister responds, to x, or corrects y.
Only the House has any meaningful power to censure ministers.
Thus far no one has been named and shamed by the Met and no doubt No.10 will try to ensure the Prime Minister’s name is not announced, should he get a fixed penalty notice. His team must already be working on a way to avoid the obvious conclusion that he lied in Parliament about the parties.
More significantly in political terms, now that the police enquiries are complete, publication of Sue Gray’s report, in full and unredacted, must surely soon follow.
FPNs (and PNDs) are a peculiar instrument. Refuse one and you can “have your day in court”, where you may be found either guilty or not guilty. Accept it and pay the fine, and you won’t be put on trial; your liability will be discharged, leaving no criminal record behind. An FPN is only issued because the police believe an offence of some sort has occurred – and there’s no reason why anyone would accept one if they were confident that a court would find them not guilty – and to that extent accepting an FPN is tantamount to a guilty plea. But, of course, pleading guilty – or accepting a caution – does go on your record, where accepting an FPN doesn’t; to that extent Downing Street’s (seemingly perverse) insistence that no laws were broken may be – strictly, pedantically – accurate.
Surely that would only be true pedantically if really no laws were broken.
That’s not orthogonal – laws broken Vs no trial therefore no guilty verdict, but neither is there equivalence.
Many laws are broken, and not, so far noticed, or noticed but not prosecuted.
But broken.
The trouble is, when we talk about crime we’re always – to some extent – talking about the workings of the criminal justice system. Ten street thieves are caught in the act and arrested. Suspects A-E are released without charge; F, G and H go to trial, where the jury isn’t impressed with police evidence and finds F and G not guilty; I and J plead guilty, J asking for six other offences to be taken into account. How many thefts took place that day?
The problem with undetected crime is that we have no idea how much of it there is, or – by logical extension – if there is any at all. Or rather, if there would be any at all, if all of it went through the system that produces convictions & thereby tells us how much crime there is.
From a common sense perspective this ‘procedural’ definition of crime is ridiculous – we all use the word ‘crime’ to mean ‘the kind of thing that’s against the law’, after all. But it has a long pedigree (see quotation below) – and common sense will only get you so far, as anyone who’s ever been wrongfully arrested in suspicious circumstances will attest.
“Crime is an intentional act in violation of the criminal law (statutory and case law), committed without defence or excuse, and penalised by the state … Only those are criminals who have been adjudicated as such by the courts” – Paul Tappan, 1947
IANAL, but Tappan as quoted refers separately to crime, by extension crimes, and to criminals.
Unless an act which would be a crime if someone was convicted (etc) of it was not a crime if nobody was found guilty.
It will be really interesting to see what the Met investigation finds – assuming, of course, that they are free to publish their findings. [I could understand if specific names were withheld, but a summary does not seem unreasonable.
My observation would be that there will be “degrees” in play in their findings. If you consider this, at one end of the spectrum we might expect to find a relatively inexperienced civil servant – perhaps who had been asked to attend “a meeting” and honestly believe that was the intent of the invitation … all the way through to individuals such as Cabinet Ministers and even the Prime Minister himself, who can have no possible excuse.
If the Met finds that there was participation among anyone who had a hand in crafting the legislation under which the participants are now receiving FPNs, then there is a deeper problem here. Not with the Met, not with the application of the law, but with the failure of the government to act responsibly – including a failure to replace any minster who may have attended, on the grounds that they *did* know better.
Meanwhile, Greased Piglet II Matt Hancock defends his former boss as being “very busy leading the European alliance against Putin”.
They don’t know or care what the truth is anymore.
Johnson will escaped unscathed among the Tory voter base, it’s not for nothing that Cameron described him as a ‘greased piglet’.
Very often when bad economic news unfolds and the general public are concerned you find financial analysts saying ‘ah but the markets have discounted it already having known about it long ago’.
We had the political equivalent today with Matt Hancock fronting up for an interview and saying ‘the PM may have broken some rules but it does not matter since he got the big calls on covid right’ and Hancock then immediately segued into a riff about how Britain was the only western nation to have dropped all covid measures and that was due to the good judgement of Johnson.
Totally galling.
This may mean nothing, but a Facebook friend has posted something which purports to be instructions to Downing Street staff on how to claim back any Partygate fines they incur as “expenses”.
I would like to hear a Conservative MP explain why it was unacceptable a few weeks ago to have a Prime Minister who broke the law and told lies, but today because of a war in Europe this is now acceptable.
The notion that the UK is in any way playing a leadership role on the response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine is laughable. We have been the object of contempt in Europe because of Brexit, and this continues, not least because of our slow and mean spirited treatment of refugees from Ukraine.
🇺🇦
There seems to be a possible loophole in all of this that I have not seen any legal commentators address. If a FPN is issued the recipient may either pay it or contest it. If the FPN is contested the police can refer the matter to the CPS for possible prosecution. However, as far as I’m aware the offences created by the various COVID regulations were summary only offences, which under section 127 of the Magistrates Court Act 1980 must be prosecuted within six months of their commission. Since all the parties and gatherings in question occurred well over 6 months ago it follows that any prosecution is time barred, so a recipient of a FPN could avoid both the fine and the risk of prosecution by simply contesting the notice. They could then maintain their innocence and insist that they were never found guilty of anything.
Or is there something I am missing?
You’re missing s.64A Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984.
Thank you for pointing this out. I thought there might be a provision like that, otherwise the whole police investigation would have potentially been a waste of time from a legal point of view.
I just hope this isn’t the sort of blog that ministers are likely to subscribe to.
Why?