The long-awaited probe into the rule-breaking parties in Downing Street during the pandemic has revealed that Boris Johnson committed a "serious contempt" of Parliament and repeatedly misled UK lawmakers. The report's largely unsurprising findings still shocked with the severity of its indictment of the former prime minister. However, how the current premier Rishi Sunak responds is likely to have significant implications for both men. The long-running animosity between Johnson and Sunak behind the scenes has boiled over into an ugly public spat in recent weeks and shredded any lingering sense of unity in the governing Conservative Party.
The findings of the seven-strong, majority-Tory parliamentary committee investigating Johnson's behavior are currently confined to a report for Members of Parliament to vote on, which will happen on Monday. A major question for Sunak is how to frame the question: will MPs be asked to endorse the findings or merely acknowledge that the report was published?
If MPs give a full-throated endorsement of the panel's verdict on Johnson, his hopes of a political comeback will be severely dented, and it would undermine his argument that he was unfairly pushed out. There's also the question of how Sunak himself will vote. Although his spokesman confirmed that the prime minister hadn't yet had a chance to read the report, having resigned as an MP before it was published and before MPs could vote on it, Johnson was likely hoping he could avoid formal sanction. That would be the case if Sunak frames the vote around acknowledging publication of the report rather than its findings on Johnson.
The government's initial reaction to the report illustrated the dilemma facing Sunak. Leader of the House of Commons Penny Mordaunt said the terms of the vote would be amendable if enough MPs support it, and Sunak's spokesman confirmed that the government wouldn't instruct Tory MPs how to vote, but both declined to confirm what the initial wording would be.
The scandal dubbed "Partygate" still casts a long shadow over the government and the ruling Tories. The party's poll lead crumbled under the weight of scandal as public trust in Johnson and his ministers collapsed. Johnson was ultimately ousted by an unprecedented number of ministerial resignations but has always blamed Sunak for triggering the rush, even though it was then Health Secretary Sajid Javid who kicked things off.
The scandals have effectively become entwined since Johnson's resignation, triggering a backlash against Sunak's Tories, again engulfing them in blanket media coverage. Thangam Debbonaire, the opposition Labour Party's shadow Leader of the House of Commons, has called into question the validity of Johnson's honors list. She described it as "a lawbreaker and a liar rewarding his cronies" and called on Sunak to "cancel these dishonorable honors."
It's not clear if Sunak will try to facilitate a final verdict on Johnson's premiership, drawing a line under all of it. If he does, he risks further angering Johnson or angering members of his party who are tired of Johnson's antics. If he doesn't, he risks angering the families of Covid victims and what polls show is a large swathe of voters.