Green Party calls for police to take over Partygate investigation
13 January 2022
- Jenny Jones: “This is clearly a matter for the police”
- Carla Denyer: “Police should be doing their job without fear or favour”
The Green Party has called for the police to take over the investigation into Partygate. The call follows Green peer Jenny Jones’s latest letter to the Met Police Commissioner questioning their failure to investigate the breach of lockdown. [1]
Green Party peer Jenny Jones said, “Since Boris Johnson’s admission of a party at 10 Downing Street, this has clearly become a matter for the police, not an internal inquiry to be carried out by a colleague of the people who attended these gatherings. Sue Gray may be independent minded but this is not an independent inquiry. Her inquiry is owned by the Prime Minister and she has to check its publication with him. Given that civil servants have a duty not to embarrass the Prime Minister, I think it would be best if all her evidence is handed over to the Met Police and that they dig out the CCTV recordings of the garden party that their officers have sat on.”
Green Party co-leader Carla Denyer said, “There’s little reason to believe that Boris Johnson will take seriously an inquiry being led by a civil servant who is ultimately answerable to himself. Government ministers must not be allowed to consider themselves above the law. The Prime Minister’s alleged breaking of lockdown rules must be taken up by the appropriate body – the police – who should be doing their job without fear or favour.”
Notes
1 https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/downing-street-party-met-police-witness-b1991716.html