Boris Johnson denies being ‘habitual liar’ and claims he was ‘taken aback’ by Partygate fine – UK politics live

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Boris Johnson would probably win a confidence vote but cannot rely on all of his ministers to back him, a Conservative pollster has said.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s World At One programme, former Conservative MP Robert Hayward said:

My guess is he probably would (win) at this stage, but the Tory party has a history of PMs winning confidence votes but not lasting the due term.

Asked whether Johnson could rely on the “payroll vote” of around 150 ministers, whips and parliamentary private secretaries to support him in a confidence vote, Lord Hayward said: “Absolutely not.”

He added:

There is a range of people within the party who are now expressing concern and the government’s ministerial team is a range and therefore the probability is that there is a good range of views.

Some of those would not support Boris Johnson if it came to a vote of confidence.

Boris Johnson suggested he has considered questions over his future amid the Partygate affair, but insisted staying as prime minister is the “responsible” approach.

Johnson, who was answering questions from users of Mumsnet, repeated his apology for the events in Downing Street.

Johnson said:

If people look at the event in question, it felt to me like a work event, I was there for a very short period of time in the Cabinet Office at my desk and, you know, I was very, very surprised and taken aback to get an FPN, but of course I paid it.

I think that on why am I still here, I’m still here because we’ve got huge pressures economically, we’ve got to get on, you know, we’ve got the biggest war in Europe for 80 years, and we’ve got a massive agenda to deliver which I was elected to deliver.

I’ve thought about all these questions a lot, as you can imagine, and I just cannot see how actually it’d be responsible right now – given everything that is going on simply to abandon a) the project which I embarked on but b)…

At this point Johnson was interrupted and told some believe he has lost the trust of the people, to which the prime minister replied:

Let’s see about that and, yeah, I’m not going to deny the whole thing hasn’t been a totally miserable experience for people in government and we’ve got to learn from it and understand the mistakes we made and we’ve got to move forward.

Asked by Mumsnet about No 10 parties, Boris Johnson says staff were “working blindingly hard” and it was necessary to keep morale high.

The prime minister was speaking to the co-founder of Mumsnet Justine Roberts, who was asking questions sent in by users. He said leaving drinks were necessary as it was “a time when we had to keep morale high, and the whole place was under a huge amount of pressure”.

One user, a teacher who said if she had broken Covid laws, she would have lost her job, asked why the prime minister was still in his job.

Johnson replied:

I am still here because we have got huge pressures economically and the biggest war in Europe for 80 years and we have got a massive agenda to deliver.

He said it was not “responsible” to abandon his project over Partygate but he admits the saga has been “totally miserable”.

He insisted “no cake was consumed by me” at his “miserable” birthday party.

Boris Johnson was “very surprised and taken aback” to get a fine for attending an event during lockdown.

The prime minister was speaking during a Q&A with Mumsnet. User questions were put to Johnson by the website’s co-founder Justine Roberts, which has been posted on YouTube.

In response to one question about his fine from the Metropolitan police, Johnson says:

I think if people look at the event in question it felt to me like a work event.

I was there for a very short period of time in the Cabinet Office, at my desk, and I was very very surprised and taken aback to get a fixed-penalty notice.

The first question asked of the prime minister is: “Why should we believe anything you say when it’s been proven you’re a habitual liar?”

Johnson responds:

Well, first of all, I don’t agree with the conclusion nor the premise of the question.

I think the best way to answer that is look at what I get on and deliver and what I say I’m going to deliver and that’s what I’m in politics to do, to try to make life better for people if I can.

I was elected at a particularly difficult time in politics, to get some tough things done.

Things then became, if anything, even more difficult because of the pandemic, but if you look at what we’re doing, we’re getting on and delivering.

He adds:

My answer about trust is people throw all sorts of accusations about all sorts of things ever since I drove around on a bus and they have all sorts of reasons for saying that.

But you’ve got to look at the record of what I deliver.

Watch the full Q&A here:

Boris Johnson‘s unpopularity in Scotland is at a record high, according to a new poll for STV News. Ipsos Mori has found he has a popularity rating amongst Scottish voters of -71, with a large majority fearing they will be worse off if remains prime minister after the next election.

The poll found the prime minister’s unpopularity had grown by 3.5 points since November, a period dominated by the Partygate scandal, with 59% of voters reporting feeling worse off now than a year ago.

Support for the Scottish Conservatives has also slumped, down six points on their 2019 general election result to 19%, putting Labour in second on 23% (up 4 points on 2019) behind the Scottish National party on 44% (-1).

Nicola Sturgeon, who celebrated being Scotland’s longest-serving first minister last week, remains popular with a +12 rating. But her satisfaction ratings are on a downward trajectory, according to Ipsos. In October 2020, when she was widely credited with showing great leadership at the height of the Covid crisis, it stood at +49.

Keir Starmer, the UK Labour leader, had a slight negative rating of -2, with 38% of Scottish voters happy with his performance but 22% holding no opinion.

The poll also showed a sharp decline in support for independence compared with Ipsos Mori’s last opinion monitor in December. It ffound the yes and no votes tied at 50% each (excluding those not likely to vote). Six months ago, yes had a clear 10-point lead, at 55% and in October 2020 it stood at 58%.

Ipsos uses different methods to other pollsters (such as relying on telephone polling instead of using panels of voters taking online polls) but those figures are consistent with other polls this year consistently showing a fall in the yes vote.

The Lib Dems have called for the army to be deployed to ease queues at airports and ports, and on roads.

The party’s transport spokesperson, Sarah Olney, said:

The chaotic scenes at airports up and down the country have been nothing short of a complete disaster.

Families’ half-term getaways have been thrown into disarray and now they face the prospect of a long weekend spent sleeping in airports and sitting in traffic jams.

We need drastic action now to tackle this travel carnage and break the logjam.

That’s why drafting Britain’s best and brightest logistics minds from the army to get things moving again is a no-brainer.

Conservative ministers need to get a grip on this chaos at the 11th hour to save the jubilee weekend. Empowering the army to run point from a command centre would do just that.

The shadow levelling up, housing and communities secretary, Lisa Nandy, has said “any government worth its salt would be moving heaven and earth to stop the misery and the chaos” unfolding at airports.

Travellers have faced several weeks of delays and disruption at airports across the UK, with demand for foreign trips bouncing back after the easing of all UK Covid travel restrictions.

In the latest day of flight cancellations and disruption at airports, British Airways and easyJet cancelled more than 150 flights to and from the UK on Wednesday, as holidaymakers faced further departure lounge delays going into the extended Queen’s platinum jubilee bank holiday.

She said:

The government was warned all the way through the pandemic that the loss of skilled staff was going to create problems.

They need to show some leadership and take some ownership of this crisis – get around the table with management and with workers’ representatives in the travel industry in order to end the chaos.

We need a proper post-Covid plan to get the industry back on its feet and get things moving again, including filling recruitment shortages that have emerged as a result of the pandemic.

Any government worth its salt would be moving heaven and earth to stop the misery and the chaos that is unfolding for families across this country right now.

It’s time for the government to stop blaming everybody else and to start doing its job.

Speaking in Wakefield, Nandy said:

When things go wrong, it’s the government’s job to step up and try and fix it.

Asked if Christopher Geidt should resign, the shadow levelling up, housing and communities secretary Lisa Nandy said he has got to make his own decision.

Lord Geidt is the independent adviser on ministers’ interests is meant to advise Johnson over whether ministers have breached the code.

Yesterday he said there was a “legitimate question” over whether the prime minister broke the ministerial code after getting fined for Partygate and said he repeatedly told the Johnson’s team to be ready to explain if his actions stuck within the rules – even if he thought there was no breach.

But he said the advice had not been “heeded” and called on Johnson to set out his case to the public. However he dodged the question of whether the prime minister himself had done so – apparently for fear of having to resign if Johnson ignored him.

The prime minister said being fined by the police does not break the ministerial code.

Nandy said:

What is clear to the whole country is that this is a prime minister who lacks integrity, who lacks the decency and honesty that it takes to lead this country.

If you can’t trust him on whether he can follow his own rules, whether he’ll rewrite those rules or tear up those rules, because he thinks he doesn’t apply to them, how can you trust him when he says that he’ll tackle the cost-of-living crisis engulfing families and businesses across this country?

Speaking in Wakefield, Nandy said the govenrmnent was rotten to the core and that the rot started at the top.

She added:

This is just a damning indictment of the prime minister’s leadership that successive ethics advisers just feel that they can’t trust the integrity of the prime minister.

If you can’t trust a single word that prime minister says then the problems go much deeper than one ethics adviser.

Ben Riley-Smith of the Telegraph has delved into the Tory MPs who have been calling for Boris Johnson to go.

It’s fair to say it is a mixed bag. 17 of them supported the campaign to leave the EU, while 13 are remainers. MPs with tiny majorities are among the 30, with three having less than 1,000, as well as ones with large majorities (eight have majorities of more than 20,000).

Nine of them had Lib Dem second in the last election while 21 had Labour in second position. Riley-Smith also says that every intake of MPs in last 40 years is represented except for 2017.

The Conservative MP Huw Merriman confirmed he would not be submitting a no-confidence letter against Boris Johnson and appealed for colleagues to focus on delivering policies rather than regime change.

The transport select committee chairman, who in February suggested Johnson needed to improve or leave Downing Street, told Sky News:

Wrong has occurred, he’s apologised, put his hands up, I judge people for what they do to turn things around and I feel he needs to be given that time to do so.

Merriman added:

I have definitely not put a letter in and I will not be putting a letter in because if I do that I’m then responsible for the very policy recommendations I’ve been making through my committee not being delivered.

He said he did not know how many letters have been submitted, adding:

My point, perhaps my appeal to colleagues is that our constituents need us right now and they need the government to deliver and parliament to deliver.

We’re not going to be able to do that if we are going through a protracted leadership contest, it just changes all the focus, all the direction, all of the chances we have of making better changes in policy that will help people through difficult times. You can’t have both.

People can either focus on the theatre and want to change direction and I respect their position if they do want that, but you can’t then expect government to be able to get on and govern and deliver policy, which is ultimately the most important thing for me.

A member of the 1922 Committee has said Conservative MPs need to consider which “crimes” Boris Johnson has “actually committed” before launching a leadership coup.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, said:

You’ve got to actually work out whether that new prime minister is actually going to be a positive asset to the country, compared to what you’ve got at the moment.

As to what he’s actually committed, the crimes that he’s actually committed, and work out whether we should have a change or not.

Clifton-Brown said he wanted Johnson to stay in position as “a man who knows how to handle crises”, citing his response to the war in Ukraine and the rising cost of living.

“When the big calls are being made, the prime minister has got it right,” he argued.

However, he added that “the situation is changing on a daily basis”.

Dominic Raab has said he does not believe there will be a vote of no confidence against Boris Johnson next week.

He told Sky News:

I just don’t see that. I think the Westminster bubble and village whips this stuff up. I’m not saying it’s not serious and significant. But we dealt with all of those issues, the prime minister has dealt with all those issues.

It does feel like a lot of commentary building up this issue when actually when I talk to MPs, when I talk to across the House of Commons about the issues that I’m taking forward … they want to see us driving forward that agenda.

To be honest with you, votes of no confidence, leadership contests, all of that, is yet more Westminster talking to itself. Not talking to the public, not talking to our constituents.

I think the vast majority of MPs respect, recognise and agree with that.

The deputy prime minister said the only “two people who want a leadership contest” were the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, and SNP Westminster leader, Ian Blackford.

He told Sky News:

The two people in the House of Commons who want a leadership contest, who talk about it in the House of Commons, are Keir Starmer and Ian Blackford for the SNP.

They’re not asking for it because they think it’s in the public interest, or indeed in the Conservative interest. I think there’s some political gain for them in doing so.

Raab questioned again the number of letters which had been sent to the 1922 Committee, adding: “I don’t know what the numbers are, I don’t think anyone does. I doubt it’s that high in terms of letters, but the truth is I don’t know.”

Boris Johnson’s deputy has insisted the prime minister did not breach the ministerial code even though he was fined by police for attending a No 10 party in lockdown, as the government’s ethics chief reportedly threatened to quit over the scandal.

Dominic Raab, the deputy prime minister and justice secretary, said on Wednesday that Johnson had only “unintentionally” and “inadvertently” broken the law by attending a birthday gathering in No 10 during lockdown, which led to him being fined by police.

He said this did not amount to a breach of the ministerial code, despite the prime minister’s ethics chief, Lord Geidt, querying whether it had been.

Geidt’s future in the role is in doubt after he said it was a “legitimate” question whether Johnson had breached the code. In response, the prime minister made clear he did not believe the code had been broken.

The prime minister is still the only one who can give permission for an ethics inquiry, and he made clear on Tuesday his intention to block one into his own conduct over the fixed penalty notice.

The row with Geidt is the latest headache for the prime minister as he faces a wave of discontent from his MPs over the fixed-penalty notice. More than 40 Tory MPs have publicly questioned Johnson’s fitness to hold office, including 18 who are known to have sent letters to Sir Graham Brady, chair of the 1922 Committee of Conservative backbenchers, to formally seek a confidence vote.

The remainder have openly called for the prime minister to resign or said they had lost faith in his leadership.

Raab said he did not believe there would be a vote of no confidence against Boris Johnson next week. He told Sky News: “I just don’t see that. I think the Westminster bubble and village whips this stuff up. I’m not saying it’s not serious and significant. But we dealt with all of those issues, the prime minister has dealt with all those issues.”

Speaking to broadcasters, Raab said Geidt had “made clear a number of concerns but the prime minister has addressed them in his response and in particular made clear the explanation that he didn’t believe he’d broken the ministerial code”.

Dominic Raab has accused airlines of a “lack of preparation” ahead of the holiday surge.

He told Sky News:

It’s good news that more holidaymakers got the confidence post-Covid pandemic to book these flights. Throughout the pandemic, the government provided ?8bn of support. There’s been some tweaks to the regulation to make it easier for the airline industry to hire.

I think also, there’s clearly been a lack of preparation for that surge back of demand of holidaymakers.

Grant Shapps has been talking to the industry for months now, saying: ‘This will come and that you need to make sure you’ve got your recruitment in place.’

So I know there’s a bit of finger-pointing going on at the moment, but that’s the support and that’s the advice.

The deputy prime minister added:

I don’t think the airline operators have done the recruitment that they should have done, and taken the advice that the transport secretary gave them.

The UK’s special envoy for the Northern Ireland protocol has said he told US officials that it has become a threat to the Good Friday agreement.

Conor Burns, the Northern Ireland minister assigned to make the UK’s case in Washington, shrugged off a threat earlier this month by the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, to block a US-UK free trade deal if the UK took unilateral action to override the protocol.

The protocol negotiated between the UK and the EU established customs checks between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Pelosi said that UK plans to introduce legislation that would create exemptions to the protocol, if they could not be agreed with the EU, were “deeply concerning”.

She warned:

If the United Kingdom chooses to undermine the Good Friday accords, the Congress cannot and will not support a bilateral free trade agreement.

On a visit to Washington last week, Burns said there was a “disconnect” between such threats and the gravity of the issues at stake with the Northern Ireland protocol.

Burns said:

This is too important for us – sorting out the situation in Northern Ireland, doing the right thing for the UK and for the people in Northern Ireland – to be interwoven with any foreign policy or trade ambition.

Burns has visited administration officials and members of Congress with a thick wad of documentation that he says UK businesses have to fill out in order to transport goods from Great Britain to Northern Ireland. The time and cost of such bureaucracy has stopped producers of foods such as shortbread and cheese from selling into Northern Ireland.

He said:

These are products that people have enjoyed in Northern Ireland for decades that have disappeared from the shelves. And that is feeding into a sense within parts of the unionist community that somehow the protocol sets them apart from the rest of the United Kingdom.

Their identity, their belonging, is undermined and that is a legitimate concern within unionism.

The UK government is asking the EU to agree to an exemption to customs checks for goods destined to be sold and consumed in Northern Ireland, and would not therefore enter the EU. It has accused Brussels of being inflexible while the EU vice-president, Maro? ?ef?ovi?, said he had put forward solutions that would “substantially improve the way the protocol is implemented”.

Read the full story here:

Dominic Raab has said it is “very unlikely” that there will be an early election.

He told Sky News:

I think it’s very unlikely. And I think, by the way, when the election comes, we’ll win it.

Questions around whether the prime minister had broken the ministerial code “have been answered”, Dominic Raab has said.

Outlining why he believes Boris Johnson has not broken the ministerial code, Raab told Sky News:

Lord Geidt raised that issue and the PM has responded to the letter and he’s been clear that in relation to the single fixed penalty notice he hadn’t intentionally broken the law and his attendance at that gathering, as has been well rehearsed, was inadvertent.

So Lord Geidt is really important, he is a senior figure. We’ve actually been working for months to reinforce his role, that’s been done by agreement between No 10 and Lord Geidt, but actually I think those questions have been answered, both in general but also now specifically in the letter the PM has sent and, as I said, we’re getting on with the job.

Raab said he thinks it is “not that simple” that Johnson receiving a fine for breaking lockdown rules means he has broken the ministerial code.

He said:

There have been examples in the past where similarly, I think Baroness Scotland, I think in 2009, she was a minister (and was fined).

The point was, she hadn’t acted deliberately or intentionally, and therefore Gordon Brown took the view that the code hadn’t been broken.

So I’m just saying there are precedents for this… I think it’s clear from the circumstances of this particular gathering, where he turned up, was there for 10 minutes, was unaware that it was a surprise birthday cake for him, that wasn’t a deliberate breach of the rules, and that’s the key point.

The treasurer of the 1922 Committee has warned that ousting Boris Johnson would mean a leadership vacuum during a “really serious situation” citing the cost of living crisis.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown claimed a leadership contest would take at least eight weeks because of the lack of an obvious successor to the prime minister.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he said:

During that time there will be complete stasis of leadership of this country at a time when we are in a really serious situation with the cost of living crisis, with potentially rail strikes.

And the other problem is, who would you have? There will be at least five or six candidates that would put in for the job.

Somebody will emerge, but there’ll be a lot of colleagues who haven’t voted for that particular candidate.

That candidate will then have the job of reuniting the party, trying to deal with all the problems that the country faces. And I think at the moment for me, we should leave matters as they are.

The deputy prime minister has said he believes the number of letters that have been submitted to Graham Brady is “pretty far off” the required amount needed to trigger a confidence vote.

Dominic Raab has said he does not believe the former cabinet minister Andrea Leadsom has submitted a letter to the 1922 Committee.

Speaking to Times Radio, Raab said:

First of all, you said that there were 30 MPs who have been public [in their criticism of the prime minister]. There’s of course well over 350-odd Conservative MPs.

Presenter Aasmah Mir responded: “Well you need to get to 54, so it’s not that far off, is it?”

Raab said:

Well, if you’re at 30, which is what you’ve just said, I think you’re pretty far off, but my point is even then, in terms of the support for the PM, the overwhelming majority have not been public about these kind of criticisms.

Although in fairness, I want to say I understand the frustrations and the concerns.

MPs being publicly vocal in their criticism of Boris Johnson does not mean they have submitted a letter.

Outlining his thoughts on Leadsom’s letter to constituents shared on social media, which criticised the prime minister Raab said:

I’ve known Andrea a long time, we came in as MPs, I hold her in high esteem.

I think it’s clear that she’s expressing her frustration, she hasn’t put a letter in as far as I understand, she hasn’t said that.

The most important thing is the fact that the prime minister has addressed all of these points [and] overhauled the No 10 operation.

Welcome to today’s liveblog. I’ll be updating you throughout the day. Do drop me an email on nicola.slawson@theguardian.com or send me a tweet @Nicola_Slawson if you think I’m missing something or if you have a question.