MPs triggered a political earthquake today by finding Boris Johnson lied to the Commons over Partygate.

After 14 months of investigation, the Privileges Committee concluded in a bombshell report that the ex-PM ‘deliberately misled’ Parliament.

It said he had been ‘disingenuous’ and if he had not already quit the House he should have been suspended for 90 days. The report also said Mr Johnson should be banned from getting a former MP pass for the Parliamentary estate.  

But the ground is laid for a titanic battle, with Mr Johnson and his allies accusing the cross-party group – which has a Labour chair but a Tory majority among the seven members – of ‘monstrous hypocrisy’ and bias against him.

In a statement this morning, he dismissed the findings as ‘tripe’. ‘We didn’t believe that what we were doing was wrong, and after a year of work the Privileges Committee has found not a shred of evidence that we did,’ he said. 

He demanded senior Tory Sir Bernard Jenkin follow him in resigning after allegations emerged that he attended a drinks party for his wife in Parliament during lockdown.

‘Why was it illegal for me to thank staff and legal for Sir Bernard to attend his wife’s birthday party?’ Mr Johnson said.

‘The hypocrisy is rank. Like Harriet Harman, he should have recused himself from the inquiry, since he is plainly conflicted.’

Rishi Sunak desperately dodged questions about the row on a visit to Harrow this morning. He again suggested the government will not back Mr Johnson in a Commons debate on the report – being pencilled in for Monday. 

In a brutal 108-page report, the committee said: ‘We conclude that when he told the House and this Committee that the rules and guidance were being complied with, his own knowledge was such that he deliberately misled the House and this committee.’ 

The MPs said that Mr Johnson’s actions had been aggravated by ‘repeated contempts and for seeking to undermine the parliamentary process’. 

It spelled out that the breaches were ‘deliberately misleading the House’, ‘deliberately misleading the Committee’, ‘breaching confidence’, ‘impugning the Committee and thereby undermining the democratic process of the House’, and ‘being complicit in the campaign of abuse and attempted intimidation of the Committee’. 

The report added: ‘We recommend that he should not be entitled to a former Member’s pass.’ 

Mr Johnson, has always denied deliberately misleading MPs, but dramatically quit as an MP on Friday after receiving a draft version of the report.

The former Conservative leader’s resignation means he will not serve the lengthy suspension recommended – which is far above the 10 days that could have sparked a by-election in his Uxbridge and South Ruislip constituency.

His decision to quit pre-empted such an outcome, with his constituents to go to the polls next month in a major electoral challenge for Mr Sunak.

Mr Johnson’s ally Nigel Adams also stepped down and his arch-supporter Nadine Dorries has announced she will go too, though her demands for answers about why she was denied a peerage before she formally quits as an MP look set to prolong the by-election struggle for the Prime Minister.

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The MPs on the panel rejected his defence that senior officials advised him Covid rules and guidance had been followed in No 10.

Evidence has previously indicated that one senior aide warned him against claiming to the Commons that social distancing guidelines were observed.

Mr Johnson said last night that Tory grandee Sir Bernard Jenkin should step down from the committee over claims he had taken part in a lockdown-busting event.

Sir Bernard is reported to have attended a drinks party held by Commons Deputy Speaker Dame Eleanor Laing in December 2020, while London was in Tier 2 measures restricting indoor mixing. The event is said to have been a 65th birthday party for Sir Bernard’s wife Anne, at which both drinks and cake were served.

Neither Sir Bernard nor Dame Eleanor responded to requests for comment about the story, which first appeared on the Guido Fawkes website. 

The matter has been referred to both the Metropolitan Police and the Commons authorities.

In a letter to Labour chair Harriet Harman, Mr Johnson said Sir Bernard appeared to be guilty of ‘flagrant and monstrous hypocrisy’ – and questioned whether its report into his own conduct could still be considered reliable.

In a separate statement, Mr Johnson added: ‘He has no choice but to explain his actions to his own committee, for his colleagues to investigate and then to resign.’

Former Cabinet minister Nadine Dorries called for the report to be halted. ‘If this is true then the report should be stopped,’ she said. ‘We cannot know what influence Sir Bernard had on its findings, and without that the report cannot stand.’

Asked about the furore on a visit to Harrow this morning, Mr Sunak said: ‘You are talking about a report that I haven’t seen and that no one else has seen. It wouldn’t be right to comment on it in advance of it coming out and being published.’

He added: ‘These are matters for the House of Commons, and Parliament will deal with it in the way that it does.’

Mr Sunak was also asked if he was ‘frustrated’ by Mr Johnson’s interventions in the past week.

‘No, I’m just getting on with delivering for the country,’ he said.

Home Office minister Chris Philp argued the MPs, including Tory former Cabinet minister Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg who branded it a ‘kangaroo court’, should not be censured.

‘Although I don’t characterise the committee in those terms, I think people are free to express their opinions,’ he told ITV’s Peston.

‘I don’t think we should be trying to sort of muzzle MPs.’

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