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LONDON — Boris Johnson denied lying to the House of Commons over the Partygate scandal as a marathon grilling on the former prime minister’s conduct got underway Wednesday.
The cross-party privileges committee, chaired by Labour grandee Harriet Harman, is examining whether Johnson knowingly misled parliament about COVID rule-breaking parties in Downing Street when he made statements about them to the House of Commons.
After swearing an oath on the King James Bible, Johnson told the committee: “I am here to say to you, hand on heart, that I did not lie to the house.”
He added: “When those statements were made they were made in good faith and on the basis of what I knew and believed at the time.”
Johnson said that “as soon as it was clear that I was wrong,” he had corrected the record, and told the committee: “You have been investigating this for more than 10 months … You have found nothing to show that I was warned in advance that events in No. 10 were illegal. Indeed, you have found nothing to show that anyone had raised anxieties with me about any event before or after they took place.”
This developing story is being updated.
