Prime Minister says he will not resign following Sue Gray’s report

Boris Johnson has insisted he will remain as Prime Minister despite the "bitter and painful" judgement of a report into parties held in Downing Street during COVID-19 restrictions.

Speaking of the Party Gate report, Mr Johnson said he takes "full responsibility for everything that took place on my watch" and has learned lessons.

Civil servant, Sue Gray's report highlighted excessive drinking, mistreatment of cleaners and security staff and COVID-19 law-breaking.

She said the leadership in Number 10 "must bear responsibility" for its culture.

Some opponents have repeated their calls for Mr Johnson to quit.

However, in a press conference on Wednesday, the Prime Minister ruled out resigning, saying: "I've got to keep moving forward."

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer had earlier called on Conservative MPs to remove him, saying it was time for Mr Johnson "to pack his bags".

Addressing the Commons, Mr Johnson said he took "full responsibility for everything that took place on my watch", had been "humbled", and learned lessons.

He told MPs that when he had previously said "the rules and guidance had been followed at all times", it had been "what I believed to be true".

He said he had attended events to wish staff who were leaving farewell, and his attendance was not outside the rules.

But this was not the case for some of those gatherings after I had left and at other groups when I was not even in the building," he added.

Mr Johnson said he had been "shocked" and "appalled" by some of Ms Gray's findings, especially over the treatment of security and cleaning staff.

At the press conference later Wednesday, he said a lot of the report, which he had only seen for the first time on Wednesday, had been "news to me".

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So where does all this leave Mr Johnson?

He apologised and, pointedly, went out of his way to explain why he believed he had not knowingly misled the Commons in his earlier accounts of what happened.

This is crucial because being proven to have intentionally lied to the House would cost him his job.

But the Prime Minister added that he did not think, at the time, he had done anything wrong at the event that led to him being fined by police.

And he said he had been right to drop into various leaving dos, even though the police fines would suggest many of them were in direct contravention of the COVID-19 laws he had championed.

Mr Johnson apologised when speaking to Conservative MPs privately at a meeting, but there is deep anger and embarrassment among many Tory MPs over what has happened. They know much of this cannot be easily excused or wished away.

And they have the power, collectively, to decide whether he stays or goes.

A 17th Tory MP has publicly declared Mr Johnson should stand down; others have demanded this privately.

But most public critics today are those who have long condemned the behaviour he presided over - and it would take fifty-four declaring a lack of confidence in Mr Johnson to trigger a vote on his leadership.

Away from what is going on in public, here is a peek at some of the texts I have had from Conservative MPs reflecting privately on where things are and how they judge the mood among their colleagues.

"Think Gray wasn't the bombshell the Prime Ministers' detractors were looking for," one says. "If anything, the photos shown in the report look less like parties than we thought they would!"

Another comment: "Yes, I think he'll survive. He did very well in chamber."

"It doesn't tell us anything newly incriminating. I sense general disinterest, to be honest," says one.

If the Prime Minister was safe, one backbencher replies: "In my view, yes."

Plenty of Cabinet Ministers have publicly expressed their loyalty to the Prime Minister.

One told me the drip-drip of revelations in recent months had become "very tedious", and they did not think "it will affect Boris anymore".

Mr Johnson's supporters also delight that there is "no longer a prince over the water", as one senior figure put it to me - in other words, an heir apparent. That referenced the chancellor's recent awkward headlines about his wife's tax bill.

But other Tory MPs fret that, from their perspective, too many people's views of the Prime Minister have been irreversibly set by what has happened, making winning a general election exceedingly tricky.

It will take some time for views to solidify, and two imminent by-elections in Wakefield in West Yorkshire and Tiverton and Honiton in Devon might help do that one way or another.

But it appears Boris Johnson is safe - for now.

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In her 37-page report, Ms Gray was critical of what was happening in Number 10 during COVID-19 restrictions, including a "bring-your-own-booze" party in May 2020 and a surprise birthday celebration for Mr Johnson the following month.

She found:

• Political and official leadership must bear responsibility for the culture at Number 10

• Staff partied - some until after 4 am - on the eve of Prince Philip's funeral.

• At another party, in June 2020, there was "excessive alcohol consumption by some individuals. One individual was sick. There was a minor altercation between two other individuals."

• A Number 10 official sent a message about "drunkenness" and recommended that staff leave Number 10 via the back exit after a December 2020 Christmas quiz to avoid press photographers.

• "Multiple examples of a lack of respect and poor treatment of security and cleaning staff"

One gathering not thoroughly investigated by Ms Gray was a reported party in the prime minister's flat which she said she could only gather "limited" evidence about.

She stopped her inquiry into the 13th of November 2020 gathering, which took place after the departures of aides Lee Cain and Dominic Cummings, after the police started their investigations. But once the police investigation finished, Ms Gray "concluded it was not appropriate or proportionate" to conduct further inquiries.

Speaking in the Commons, Labour's Sir Keir, being investigated by police over his lockdown event, said the report "laid bare the rot" in Number 10 and called on Tory MPs to tell Mr Johnson that the "game is up."

Senior Tory backbencher Tobias Ellwood, a prominent critic of Mr Johnson, challenged him over the "damning report," which revealed an "absence of leadership, focus and discipline in Number 10".

He asked fellow Conservative MPs: "Are you willing day in and day out to defend this behaviour publicly?"

SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford branded the Gray report "damning" and called the Prime Minister to resign for "orchestrating" the scenes in Downing Street.

And Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said: "Any other Prime Minister would be forced to resign by a report as damaging as this, yet still Conservative MPs defend Johnson and allow him to cling on."

But at the press conference, the prime minister said: "I understand why people are indignant and why people have been angry at what took place."

Pressed on whether he had ever considered resigning, he responded: "it is my job to get on and deliver.

"No matter how bitter and painful that the conclusions of this may be - and they are - and no matter how humbling they are, I have got to keep moving forward, and the government has got to keep moving. And we are."

According to a Tory source, at a meeting of the Conservative backbench group, the 1922 Committee, the Prime Minister later ruled out imposing a drinking ban in Downing Street, saying that "decompressing" at the end of a long working day should not mean "checking out at 4 am legless, having been rude to a member of staff, having thrown up over a sofa".

Mr Johnson told MPs he had already brought in senior Downing Street management changes recommended by Ms Gray.

He denied lying to Parliament over lockdown parties but admitted he had not been correct when saying the rules had always been followed.

The publication of Ms Gray's findings follows last week's conclusion of a separate Metropolitan Police investigation into lockdown parties in Downing Street and other government premises.

Eighty-three people were given a total of 126 fines for breaking COVID-19 laws, including Mr Johnson, his wife Carrie, and Chancellor Rishi Sunak.

The Prime Minister is also under investigation by the Commons Privileges Committee over claims he misled Parliament over lockdown parties.