Under-fire Boris Johnson denies lying over lockdown parties

LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Tuesday denied misleading Parliament about lockdown-breaching parties, as senior government ministers said he would have to resign if he was proven to have lied.

Former Johnson aide Dominic Cummings has said he is willing to swear under oath that the prime minister was warned in advance that a May 2020 garden party for Downing Street staff would break coronavirus restrictions.

Johnson denies he was warned. He told Parliament last week that he had attended the party, but considered it a work gathering that fell within the rules.

“Nobody told me that what we were doing was … against the rules,” Johnson told broadcasters on Tuesday. “When I went out into that garden I thought that I was attending a work event.”

The garden party is one of a string of alleged rule-flouting government parties being investigated by senior civil servant Sue Gray.

Gray is due to report by the end of the month on claims government staff held late-night soirees, “bring your own booze” parties and “wine time Fridays” while Britain was under coronavirus restrictions in 2020 and 2021. The allegations have spawned public anger, incredulity and mockery, and prompted some in the governing Conservative Party to call for Johnson’s resignation.

Treasury chief Rishi Sunak — often cited as a potential successor to Johnson as prime minister — said he believed Johnson’s explanation. But he said that “the Ministerial Code is clear” about the consequences of misleading Parliament. Ministers who do that are expected to resign.

Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab agreed that deliberately lying to Parliament was “normally ... a resigning matter.” But he dismissed Cummings’ claim Johnson was warned about the...