Sue Gray, who wrote the report, said the Johnson administration’s “high leadership at the center” “must take responsibility” for a multi-party culture.
He added that “there is no excuse for some of the behaviors” he investigated, which at least on one occasion included “excessive alcohol consumption” and saw a staff member vomit to drink excessively.
A dossier of Johnson lifting a can of beer at a birthday party in his honor was included in the dossier, along with more images of Johnson at another event.
The report investigated 16 events that took place in the heart of government while the UK was living under strict Covid-19 restrictions.
Gray also discovered that Johnson attended a garden party in May 2020 for about half an hour, where there were about “30-40 people.”
Records of email exchanges were also presented, including some in which staff were asked to avoid “walking around shaking bottles of wine” while the media was in the building and to keep the sound low at meetings when a ministerial press conference was held on Covid-19. .
An invitation to a garden party that Johnson was seen attending told staff of “socially distanced drinks” in the Downing Street Garden, open to “whoever is in your office.”
“Could you also suggest that they bring their own drink? I’m not sure we’ll have enough,” Johnson Reynolds, Johnson’s chief private secretary, said in an email. The next day, Reynolds noted that the media had not reported on the party, writing to a colleague, “Looks like we got away with it.”
And Gray hinted that Downing Street officials had not been willing to provide information about the parties, and wrote: “Unfortunately, it was also the case that the details of some events were known only to me and my team. through media reports. This is disappointing. “
Johnson’s time in office has been derailed by the months-long scandal called “Partygate” by British media. He initially denied that there had been any incidents, but 16 were later investigated by Gray, 12 were investigated by police and Johnson himself was fined by officers for attending one.
On the eve of the report’s release, ITV News published photographs of Johnson having a drink with several of his colleagues at an outing ceremony in November 2020, when indoor mixing was banned.
Johnson will address the House of Commons later Wednesday. Some lawmakers in his own Conservative party have joined opposition calls for him to resign in recent weeks, and now he will have to persuade his colleagues to keep him on his side despite the large number of candidates. legations and Gray’s investigative conviction.