Bullish Johnson refuses to step down after Commons grilling

London, Jan 19 (EFE).- Boris Johnson weathered derision and laughter from the opposition benches during Wednesday’s parliamentary question time as the British prime minister tried to navigate his government through yet another grilling on the Downing Street party scandal.

The Conservative Party leader’s morning got off to a bad start when one of his MPs, Christian Wakeford, crossed the aisle in the House of Commons to defect to the Labour Party.

The Labour Party-led opposition benches, as expected, used the weekly Prime Minister’s Questions to pressure Johnson into resigning over the news he attended a B.Y.O.B (Bring Your Own Booze) gathering in the No.10 gardens in May 2020, when the UK was in lockdown.

Also as expected, Johnson, who has apologized for attending the event but claimed he thought it was work-related, said MPs must wait for an internal inquiry being conducted by senior civil servant Sue Grey.

Labour leader Keir Starmer launched into the matter and, when interrupted by jeers from the Tory benches, quipped: “I’m sure the Chief Whip has told them to bring their own boos.”

Starmer then pressured Johnson to state whether his staff had warned him not to allow the alleged garden party to go ahead, to which the PM again deferred to the findings of the ongoing inquiry.

Starmer’s line of questioning came following recent accusations leveled by Johnson’s former advisor Dominic Cummings, who claimed the prime minister had ignored his advice to cancel the events.

Johnson’s most recent take on the incident was that he was unaware the gatherings had breached lockdown rules that his own government had drawn up.

Johnson was cheered by his cabinet ministers on the front benches of the House of Commons but UK media reports suggest support for the prime minister in the wider parliamentary party was wearing thin amid attempts to gather enough signatures to trigger a leadership challenge, the same way Johnson first came to power following Theresa May’s resignation.

To add to the prime minister’s woes on Wednesday, his former Brexit secretary David Davis, now a Conservative MP, stood up to repeat a quote once uttered to Neville Chamberlain.

“You have sat there too long for all the good you have done, in the name of God, go.”EFE

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