Did Johnson Actually Lie to Parliament - TLDR News

this video was brought to you by our backers on patreon like erin e those supporters not only help us make more content for everyone but this month they also get access to a bunch of exclusive trial live streams so sign up now by clicking the link below as you might have seen in our recent video things got pretty heated in the commons on monday evening after boris johnson half apologized to the house for the findings described in the sioux gray report there was a bit of a kerfuffle when ian blackford leader of the snp in westminster accused johnson of deliberately lying to parliament a charge known in westminster as willfully misleading the house trust he has been investigated by the police he misled the house he must now resign [Applause] this is much bigger than just some westminster drama though and potentially could force johnson out of office so let's discuss what blackford's claiming and if johnson really did mislead the house [Music] now the claim being made by blackfoot misleading the house is a pretty serious charge by convention ministers who deliberately mislead the house are expected to resign as happened with john pefumo in 1963 and ministers who inadvertently mislead the house are expected to correct the record as soon as possible in fact the ministerial code states it is of paramount importance that ministers give accurate and truth information to parliament correcting any inadvertent error at the earliest opportunity going on to say that ministers who knowingly mislead parliament will be expected to offer their resignation to the prime minister now this is technically just a convention ministers aren't legally required to resign they're just expected to do so but the whole uk political system relies on conventions like these the uk system is sometimes described as the good chap theory of government which essentially assumes that ministers are good chaps who play within the rules and obey conventions even if there's technically no legal penalty anyway johnson denied blackford's allegation and blackfood was ultimately ejected for the chamber for making it this is because according to the rules of parliamentary debate mps can only accuse each other of lying during a substantive motion not during a casual debate blackford's specific allegation related to a statement by johnson on december 8th during prime minister's questions when johnson seemed to imply that he thought there had been no parties in downing street and that no rules had been broken repeat mr speaker that i have been repeatedly assured since these allegations emerged that there was no party and that and that no kobe rules were broken and that is what i have been repeatedly assured now to be completely fair to johnson here in that clip he only claimed that he had been repeatedly assured that there were no parties and that no rules were broken but he does seem to at least imply that he also thinks as much however this seems unlikely given the police are currently investigating 12 parties including one at johnson's flat on november 13th and another he was known to have attended so johnson was presumably aware of at least a couple of the parties currently being investigated but we'll leave it up to you to make up your mind on that one anyway the mata was also raised by labour mp chris bryant who referred to two other statements that johnson made to the house one on november 13th and another on december 1st and again because he still won't even admit to the house that when he came to us on the 13th of november and said the guidance and the rules were followed at all times and on the 1st of december that all the guidelines were observed that those things simply were not true if you won't correct the record today there's nothing accidental about this is there it's deliberate [Music] [Applause] now we're not exactly sure what brian is referring to on november 13th because parliament was on recess at that time but the december first allegation probably relates to this statement johnson gave to kierstama's first question during pmqs is that all guidance was followed completely during number ten and can i and can i can i recommend now this one looks like a pretty cut and dry case of misleading the house here johnson himself said that all guidance was followed not just that his team had assured him as much and that seems very unlikely at this point as to whether this misleading was intentional or inadvertent well it seems unlikely that johnson was unaware of all the partying especially given that as we mentioned one of the alleged parties occurred within his own flat it's of course technically possible that johnson didn't know about any of the parties but it's just very unlikely however johnson could get out of this on a technicality the kobe regulations were implemented via the public health act of 1984 which includes an exemption for crown and government properties this would include number 10 where the parties are alleged to have taken place if this exemption renders the downing street parties as within the guidance and therefore legal then johnson's statement that the guidance was followed at all times isn't technically incorrect and therefore he wouldn't have misled the house nonetheless relying on this relatively arcane exemption wouldn't be a good look for johnson as it's pretty consistent with the one rule for us another for them narrative that's damaged the government's poll ratings so far so the two allegations of lying to the house directed at johnson on monday night look pretty dodgy for the pm but it's at least possible that he could get his way out of them and it's worth saying that these aren't the only instances where the prime minister has apparently misled the house on that same night johnson implied that stalmer had failed to prosecute jimmy savile as director of public prosecutions and as we explained at the time in an instagram post this isn't really true stammer wasn't the reviewing lawyer of the jimmy savile case and actually commissioned an investigation into the issue and as a result even johnson's own mps were apparently uncomfortable with this accusation with former chief whip julian smith describing it as false and baseless somewhat unsurprisingly though on tuesday morning johnson's spokesperson said that johnson quote stands by what he said in the house but that's not the only instance of johnson potentially misleading the house on monday night the prime minister's off-repeated claim that the uk has the fastest growth within the g7 is also very debatable while it's true if you look at the last 12 months it's not true if you consider the last quarter the uk came in fifth ahead of just the us and japan and the uk's high growth figure over the last 12 months is largely due to the fact that the uk experienced the largest recession during the pandemic similarly johnson's claim that there are now hundreds of thousands of more people in employment than there were when the pandemic began which he's repeated in the house on at least six occasions as of the writing of this video is also questionable johnson's figure apparently excludes self-employed people and in fact according to the ons data there are about 500 000 fewer people in employment than there were at the start of the pandemic the office for statistics regulation has also sent a letter to the prime minister asking him to correct the record but that happened before the incident on monday and he's still yet to correct the record so even with technical loopholes it's clear that boris is more willing than previous prime ministers to play fast and loose with the truth as a last thing we should say that we're not doing this video as a party political attack on johnson or the conservatives we're doing this video because it's constitutionally important the uk's uncodified constitution relies on politicians abiding within conventions and norms when conventions are violated frequently and without consequence they're no longer conventions and this marks a change in the uk's constitution akin to a constitutional amendment in the us now it's not clear this has happened in the uk just yet most of the house does seem to consider lying a resigning matter which is part of the reason why so many are calling on johnson to go but regardless the convention is clearly under some significant strain what do you think though did johnson intentionally or unintentionally mislead the house does this mean that he should go comment your thoughts down below also like i mentioned at the start of this video this month our patreon backers are getting access to a bunch of trial live streams as we work on developing our live output now we will be doing public live streams soon but these trial ones allow patrons to see our work in progress and feedback before anyone else can so if that sounds like something you'll be interested in then sign up to any tier above five dollars by clicking the link below 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Channel: TLDR News

Views: 195,836

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Id: d-ty-iISIx0

Length: 9min 57sec (597 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 06 2022