Thank you for contacting me about Boris Johnson and his behaviour.

I have been contacted by hundreds of constituents about this matter in recent weeks, all rightly furious both with the repeated parties revealed to have taken place in Downing Street while the rest of the country was under Covid restrictions, and with the attempts since December to hide the truth from the British people behind a tissue of shameless lies.

I can only say that I agree wholeheartedly with those sentiments, and I hope I have done justice to your and others’ views in my numerous media appearances in the last month, when I have been consistent in my condemnation of the Prime Minister and my calls for him to resign.

At the time of writing, the limited version of Sue Gray’s report into the breaches of Covid rules that took place in No10 over the course of 2020 and 2021 has just been published. In the Labour Party, we are demanding that the government release this report in full.

In Sue Gray’s report, 16 events have been flagged, three of which have not been previously reported on, and 12 of which are now being investigated by the Metropolitan Police.

We are still waiting to see where that long-overdue investigation will lead. However, I strongly believe that – whatever the outcome of those processes – the British people have seen enough to make up their minds. They can see that we have a hypocrite and a liar for a Prime Minister, a man who broke the rules he was telling others to follow and then lied about it to try and save his skin when the details started to emerge.

He has been caught out trying to take the British public for fools, and if he had a shred of decency, or any sense of shame, he would simply apologise and resign. But since he apparently has neither, we must hope that his own MPs will accept their own responsibility to get rid of him. And together with my Labour colleagues, I will keep up the pressure for them to do so.

Please know that I share the strong feelings of my constituents on this issue, especially those who endured heartbreaking sorrow, isolated from their loved ones, in order to stick to the rules, all while Boris Johnson and his staff threw their parties, laughed about it, and lied about it.

There must be a reckoning for that conduct. Thank you again for your email. You are welcome to get back in touch with me if there are any further matters you would like to raise.

Best wishes,

The Rt Hon. Emily Thornberry MP
Islington South and Finsbury
Shadow Attorney General