Boris johnson will be grilled by the police. Does that mean he should resign? | thearticle

We now know that the Metropolitan Police are investigating breaches of Coronavirus regulations in Downing Street. If they find evidence that the Prime Minister was present at an illegal

gathering (otherwise known as a “party”), he will be interviewed, probably under caution. The only other PM who was interviewed by the police while in office was Tony Blair in 2006. On that

occasion, he was merely a witness. However, Blair later revealed that if they had cautioned him, he would have resigned. This precedent does not look good for Boris Johnson. What, then, is

the case for remaining in office? In the first place, there is the presumption of innocence: Boris Johnson has consistently maintained that he never knowingly broke the rules. He will

presumably say the same thing to the officers who grill him. If they decide that his story is implausible, they may issue him with a Fixed Penalty Notice (FPN) — in other words, a fine. He

could appeal against it, but it seems unlikely that a Prime Minister would wish to go to court. An FPN is not a criminal conviction, would not require a court appearance and does not result

in a criminal record. Would such a fine be a resigning matter? That is more a political question than a legal one. An FPN may be imposed for a wide range of offences: for parking or

speeding, littering or minor public order offences, for example. To be fined for such an offence would certainly be embarrassing for any politician, but would not normally require their

resignation. It follows that the Prime Minister could only be forced to resign in this case because his own party demands it. Let that Tory MP who has never broken the Coronavirus rules, or

indeed had a parking fine, cast the first stone. As for the Tony Blair precedent: the 2006 “Cash for Honours” affair, which prompted the police investigation into his Government, was

incomparably more serious than “Partygate”. The law in question was the 1925 Abuse of Honours Act, introduced in the wake of Lloyd George’s notorious practice of selling honours in return

for financial support. The arrest of Des Smith, an adviser who had been recorded claiming that donors to the Academy School programme could expect knighthoods and peerages, resulted in

Blair’s Chief of Staff, Jonathan Powell, being interviewed under caution. Another senior Downing Street official, Ruth Turner, was arrested. So was Lord Levy, known as the PM’s “cashpoint”

for his ability to raise funds for the Labour Party, allegedly by dubious means. Over the 16 month investigation, the Crown Prosecution Service considered criminal charges, not only under

the 1925 Act, but also of perversion of the course of justice — both of which could have resulted in substantial prison sentences. In the end, the CPS decided that prosecutions would not be

in the public interest and nobody was charged. Soon after this case was closed, a new Director of Public Prosecutions was appointed by Baroness Scotland, Blair’s Attorney General, to replace

Sir Ken Macdonald. His name was Keir Starmer. The outcome of the Cash for Honours affair remains controversial and there have been various attempts since to tighten up the law on prime

ministerial patronage, with questionable success. What is not in dispute is that Tony Blair would have been obliged to resign if proof had emerged of his direct involvement in a conspiracy,

either to sell honours or to pervert the course of justice. But Boris Johnson is not accused of anything remotely like this. The gravamen of the accusation against him is that he presided

over a “culture” of rule-breaking and dissolute behaviour at Number 10. That is serious enough, to be sure, but it does not cross the threshold of criminal conduct as most people understand

it. The Coronavirus regulations which appear to have been infringed here were temporary and ill-defined, with a grey area between compulsion and guidance. The police have considerable

latitude and have normally only imposed FPNs as a last resort, when members of the public refused to obey their instructions. To impose fines retrospectively is quite exceptional. It looks

very much as if Cressida Dick, the Metropolitan Commissioner, is making an example of the Prime Minister and his staff, under pressure from the media. Her decision has been “welcomed” by the

PM as a way to clear the air, but under other circumstances it would invite legal challenge. Nobody is above the law in this country, but policing ought never to be politicised. British

history is actually full of examples of prime ministers who may have broken the law but escaped prosecution. Leaving aside the era before Peel created the Metropolitan Police, when what

would now be considered rank corruption was institutionalised, one immediately encounters the case of the first Duke of Wellington, who while Prime Minister in 1829 fought a duel with the

Earl of Winchelsea. Even then, duels were illegal, but as neither party was injured the Duke was never charged. Other 19th-century prime ministers barely passed muster, either from a legal

or a moral point of view. As a result of stock market speculation, the young Disraeli fell heavily into debt (then a criminal matter) and entered Parliament in 1837 partly to escape the

bailiffs. Two years later he married a rich widow. His great rival Gladstone might nowadays attract the attention of the police, too, for his nocturnal walking the streets to “rescue”

prostitutes. More seriously, the concentration camps set up during the Boer War might well be considered war crimes today, landing the then Prime Minister Lord Salisbury in the International

Court at The Hague. Coming to the 20th century, H.H. Asquith, was so often slightly inebriated at the despatch box that he was nicknamed “Squiffy”. Nothing illegal about that, or indeed

about Churchill’s habit of quaffing brandy in the same place, but it puts the Downing Street “drinking culture” into perspective. Churchill himself broke wartime regulations almost every

night, for example by watching the Blitz from the roof of the Shell Building. Nor did he take much notice of rationing — but nobody begrudged him his champagne and other delicacies as long

as he was winning the war. Anthony Eden undoubtedly lied to the House of Commons over Suez, but was allowed to resign months later on health grounds. His successor, Harold Macmillan, was

accused of war crimes by Count Nikolai Tolstoy for his decision in 1945 to hand over to Stalin and Tito some 70,000 Cossacks and Yugoslav collaborators, most of whom were executed. Coming to

the 1960s, neither Harold Wilson nor Edward Heath was above reproach: the former for his notorious resignation honours list, the latter for accepting lavish gifts from dictators, including

Saddam Hussein. Margaret Thatcher effectively misled the House of Commons during the Westland Affair and only survived in office because Neil (now Lord) Kinnock failed to deliver the

knockout blow. John Major, who tried to stamp out “sleaze” with his “Back to Basics” moral conservatism, would certainly have been forced to resign if his own secret affair with one of his

ministers, Edwina Currie, had come to light at the time. David Cameron’s business activities on behalf of China since leaving office (not to mention his lobbying for Greensill) cast a long

shadow over his premiership. In short: Boris Johnson is hardly uniquely iniquitous among Prime Ministers, merely because he is now having his collar felt by the police. He could yet survive

this latest indignity. If he does not, it will be politics rather than the law that evicts him from Downing Street. And that is as it should be. Boris may be guilty of many things, but any

rate he is not accused, like the duelling Duke of Wellington, of attempting to murder one of his political opponents. A MESSAGE FROM THEARTICLE _We are the only publication that’s committed

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