Police reopen investigation into Tory event

The Metropolitan Police is reopening an investigation into breaches of Covid regulations at a Christmas gathering at Conservative Party HQ.

A video of the event, where aides were invited to “jingle and mingle”, was published by the Sunday Mirror.

Police say they will not investigate alleged gatherings at the prime minister’s country home, Chequers, when Boris Johnson was PM.

But they are also now investigating an event in Parliament on 8 December 2020.

According to the Guido Fawkes website, this event involved Conservative backbencher Sir Bernard Jenkin.

Sir Bernard sits on the Commons Privileges Committee, which last month published a highly critical report about Mr Johnson.

He told the BBC it was not appropriate to comment on an ongoing investigation.

Mr Johnson – who stood down as an MP with a stinging attack on the committee – had accused Sir Bernard of “monstrous hypocrisy” if the allegations on the Guido Fawkes site were true.

Conservative MP Virginia Crosbie issued an apology for attending the event while Covid restrictions were in place.

The Ynys Mon MP confirmed the event took place but said she had not sent out any invitations.

The Met police investigated the December 2020 party at Tory HQ last year, after a picture emerged showing former London mayoral candidate Shaun Bailey and Tory aides raising glasses besides buffet food, when indoor socialising was banned in the area.

In November, the Met said they were taking no further action against Mr Bailey or the others pictured.

They have now said they are reopening their inquiry, as the video published by the Mirror was not previously provided to officers.

An invitation to the gathering, seen by the BBC, invited people to a “jingle and mingle” party.

Mr Bailey – who was given a seat in the House of Lords in Mr Johnson’s resignation honours list – previously said he apologised “unreservedly” for the event, which he said had “turned into something” after he left.

He claimed he was “very upset about the video” as he had “never seen it before”.

The Liberal Democrats said Prime Minister Rishi Sunak should stop Mr Bailey “from taking his seat as a peer while this investigation takes place”.

Meanwhile, the Met Police and Thames Valley Police said they would not launch an investigation into potential rule-breaking between June 2020 and May 2021 at Downing Street and Chequers.

In May, the forces said they were assessing information handed to them by Cabinet Office officials after a review of Mr Johnson’s official diary as part of preparations for the Covid inquiry.

Thames Valley police were looking into visits by Mr Johnson’s family and friends to Chequers – the prime minister’s country house in Buckinghamshire – during the pandemic.

The Met were looking at possible further rule-breaches in Downing Street.

In a jointly-issued statement on Tuesday, the forces said that after “further clarification” on the diary entries, they had decided the events did “not meet the retrospective criteria for opening an investigation”.

When news of his referral broke, Mr Johnson denied there had been any Covid breaches at the events, saying the actions of the Cabinet Office bore “all the hallmarks” of a “politically motivated stitch-up”.

The Cabinet Office said at the time that the material it had passed to police came from the “normal” process of reviewing documents.

Former prime minister Mr Johnson stood down as an MP last month after a Commons committee accused him of misleading Parliament over separate events in Downing Street during the pandemic.

The BBC has approached him for a fresh comment.

Reports /TrainViral/