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Former prime minister Boris Johnson will give evidence to the House of Commons’ Privileges Committee on Wednesday after being accused of knowingly and recklessly misleading parliament over the Partygate scandal.
Mr Johnson, who was ousted by his own MPs last summer and replaced by Liz Truss, will appear before the seven-member, cross-party panel chaired by Labour grandee Harriet Harman in what is expected to be a hostile questioning that could determine his political future.
Wednesday’s session will commence at 2pm and could last for as long as five hours.
The Independent will bring you all the latest breaking news lines and cover the hearing in depth on our live blog and via Indy TV. It will also be broadcast live on Parliament TV.
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In an interim report published earlier this month, the Privileges Committee said it believed Mr Johnson may have misled parliament on at least four occasions regarding the parties and said that the rule-breaking should have been “obvious” to him.
On Tuesday, Mr Johnson submitted a 52-page dossier of his own to the panel in which he conceded that what he had said about the gatherings had been misleading but insisted he “would never have dreamed” of intentionally lying and that “hindsight is a wonderful thing”.
He also described some of the allegations he has faced from the committee as illogical and absurd, accusing it of being highly partisan despite four of its seven members being fellow Conservatives, the insinuation being that it has relied too heavily on evidence gathered by senior civil servant Sue Gray, who was recently appointed as Sir Keir Starmer’s new chief of staff.
Boris Johnson faces a committee showdown on Wednesday
(EPA)
In passages that are likely to form part of his defence on Wednesday, Mr Johnson argued that there was no proof that he had intentionally told untruths and said that he had not been warned in advance that the events concerned broke any rules.
The committee responded by saying the former PM had submitted his filing late and that it had contained errors but no “new documentary evidence”.
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Mr Johnson will be represented at Wednesday’s session by Lord Pannick KC, a well-known and widely-respected barrister.
If the committee recommends any sanctions against Mr Johnson they would have to be approved by parliament, with one possible outcome being his suspension from the Commons, which, if it were to be for a period longer than 10 days, could trigger a by-election in his Uxbridge and South Ruislip constituency and draw a line under his fanciful hopes of staging a comeback as Tory leader.
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