Twenty members of the Conservative Party can be seen celebrating at the end of 2020, when the country was under strict confinement in order to stem the Covid-19. Families of Covid-19 victims say they are outraged.
The noose continues to tighten around Boris Johnson. This Sunday, the British daily The Mirror uploaded a video in which several members of the conservative party sang, danced and drank during a party organized at the party’s headquarters in full confinement, at the end of 2020. One more exhibit in the case say “Partygate “, which has been shaking the country for months.
At the time, the British Prime Minister was the leader of the party, and is strongly suspected of having organized, or at least tolerated, several of these evenings even when the country was under glass with heavy restrictions in order to avoid a new wave of Covid-19, particularly virulent at this time across the Channel. This is the first video that confirms the holding of these celebrations, previously documented by several photographs already in the file.
In the images shot at the party’s London headquarters, several individuals, 24 according to the British press, talk to each other a few centimeters away in defiance of elementary barrier gestures. Among them, the British daily points out that at least two have been included on the list of appointments to the House of Lords by Boris Johnson himself.
“Disgusting”
The disclosure of this video caused anger among the relatives of patients who succumbed to Covid-19 during this period, subject like everyone else to strict rules which sometimes prevented them from being alongside their loved ones.
Nearby MirrorLobby Akinnola, spokesperson for Covid Bereaved Families For Justice (CBFFJ), who lost his father to Covid, calls the video “disgusting.”
“They felt emboldened and safe enough to not only do it, but to film it and create evidence. As Christmas approached, the UK was in crisis, we were approaching the highest death rate raised in the world. At a time when they literally held the life of the Nation in their hands, they thought of themselves”, he attacks.
“It’s hard to understand how they can act so recklessly, given what the rest of the country was going through,” said Amos Waldman, another spokesperson for the same association.
Debbie Lewis, who founded Covid 19 Families UK after the loss of her father, says she is as “angry as she is surprised.” “Finding out that they threw parties and danced and sang about it when we’ve been through so much is just awful,” she says.
investigative committee
As indicated The Mirror, this footage is in the hands of British police. Either way, the pressure around Boris Johnson, who has already stepped down as an MP, is tightening.
This Monday, British MPs are voting on the damning report of a commission of inquiry which concluded that the former Prime Minister had lied to Parliament in this affair.
On the very day of Boris Johnson’s 59th birthday, the elected members of the House of Commons will have to say whether they endorse the conclusions of the parliamentary committee on privileges and sanctions which it has recommended against the ex-Prime. minister.
In a report released Thursday, the commission concluded that he had “misled the House on a matter of the utmost importance to the House and to the public” on “repeated occasions”.
Some of his most loyal supporters in Parliament have already assured that they will reject the report, even if according to the British press the former Prime Minister has called on his supporters not to oppose the conclusions of the commission.
The Conservative Party leadership did not give voting instructions, but Conservative House Speaker Penny Mordaunt said the motion under discussion “will ask the House to approve” the report and called on elected officials to “commit make their own judgement”.
Source: BFM TV
