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🔴 Exclusive: The former PM said that the proposals were 'not acceptable' and backed proceeding with the NI Protocol Bill

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🔴 The Privileges Committee is set to publish its partygate evidence this morning, just hours before Boris Johnson will face a grilling which could determine his future as an MP

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🗣 The committee will publish a "core bundle" of evidence at 9am which will be referred to throughout this afternoon’s session with the former premier which is due to get underway at 2pm and could last four hours

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🇪🇺 Tory MP predicts 'endless rows' with EU if Windsor Framework is implemented

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🗣 No eye-rolls, no gesticulations: Inside Boris Johnson’s preparations for partygate grilling

Some of the country’s most renowned lawyers have been putting former PM through his paces ahead of crucial hearing

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🔵 Simon Case has denied reassuring Boris Johnson that Covid rules were followed in Downing Street during the pandemic

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🗣 New evidence published by the Privileges Committee on Wednesday morning showed Mr Case, the Cabinet Secretary, denied giving Mr Johnson "any assurances that Covid rules were followed at all times in No 10"

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🗣However, Mr Cain said: "From memory there were around 40 people in attendance including the PM, the PPS, Mrs Johnson and - unusually - advisers from other departments. They were joined by a cross section of staff from across Downing Street"

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🔴 Simon Case, the then Cabinet Secretary, and Jack Doyle, who was director of communications at the time, replied "no" when asked if they had assured Johnson that the guidance was adhered to

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🔴 Three times as many people in Northern Ireland support Rishi Sunak’s Brexit deal

New poll shows some unionists in favour of Windsor Framework with one in five of DUP voters opposed, but more than a third weren’t opposed

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🇪🇺 The vote is seen as indicative of overall support for the Northern Ireland Protocol deal with the EU, which was struck in February after years of discord between Brussels and London

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🔴 Steve Baker claimed Boris Johnson risked being viewed as a "pound shop Nigel Farage" after the former prime minister announced he will vote against Rishi Sunak’s Brexit deal amid a growing Tory revolt

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🗣 Mr Baker, a Northern Ireland minister, said Mr Johnson "has got a choice" as he urged the ex-premier to follow the path of a "statesman".

"He can be remembered for the great acts of statecraft that he achieved or he can risk looking like a pound shop Nigel Farage"

🗣 Mr Farage, the former leader of the Brexit Party, hit back and said: "You give Steve Baker a government job and he stops being a Brexiteer. What a fraud this man is."

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🔵 Inside Boris Johnson’s preparations for partygate grilling

If political danger can be measured in the hours of preparation dedicated to a given event, then Boris Johnson is all too aware of what is riding on the partygate hearing

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🗣 Dominic Cummings has ridiculed Boris Johnson's "comical" claims around partygate as the former prime minister faces a four-hour grilling that is likely to determine his political future.

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🗣 Mr Cummings insisted he had not given any reassurances, and is quoted as telling the Cabinet Office investigation team: "The idea the PM could have thought this drinks event was 'work' is comical, given the tables covered in bottles of drink, everyone standing around drinking"

🔵 Elsewhere, two other key revelations from today's partygate evidence is that two Downing Street aides have denied telling Boris Johnson that all Covid guidance was followed

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🔴 LATEST: The European Research Group of Tory Brexiteers has urged its members to vote against Rishi Sunak's Windsor Framework this afternoon in a fresh blow to the Prime Minister.

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🗣 Mark Francois, ERG chairman, made the recommendation at a meeting of the group this morning which was attended by approximately 30 Tory MPs.

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📺 As the European Research Group urges Tory MPs to vote against Sunak's deal watch the fallout and key questions at PMQs live ⤵️

youtube.com/live/0EDF7-mDB…

🖊 Pictured: Rishi Sunak leaving No10 ahead of PMQs earlier

At PMQs, Sir Keir Starmer used his first question at PMQs to raise the Casey review into failings in the Metropolitan Police

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🔴 Mr Sunak said: "What Louise Casey also says is that primary public accountability of the Met sits with the Mayor of London"

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🔵 Sir Keir then told Mr Sunak: "The answer he didn't want to give... is four per cent of cases"

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🔴 Brexiteers urge Tory MPs to reject Sunak's deal

The European Research Group of Tory Brexiteers has urged its members to vote against Rishi Sunak's Windsor Framework this afternoon in a fresh blow to the Prime Minister

Watch the debate live here
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🔴 Watch ex-PM's partygate grilling live ⤵️

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🔴 PICTURED: Boris Johnson has arrived in the Committee room

🔴 Boris Johnson tells the Committee gatherings "went past the point where they could be said to be necessary for work purposes".

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🔴Latest: Boris Johnson tells #PrivilegesCommittee he "did not lie to the House".

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🔴Johnson's partygate statement so far.

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https://twitter.com/benrileysmith/status/1638548801546866689?s=20

🔴"You haven't got any evidence" says Johnson.

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🔴Boris Johnson says most of the events relied on by the Committee "are events I attended for a 10 or 15 minutes, perhaps a maximum of 25 in one case".

"I obviously did not know at this time that any of these events later escalated beyond what was lawful after I left"

🔴Boris Johnson mentions the June 19, 2020 event "for which I and the current Prime Minister received fixed penalty notices".

He repeats his insistence that he never thought he was breaking any rules.
telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/…

🔴Sir Bernard Jenkin is the first member of the Privileges Committee to question Mr Johnson.

Sir Bernard tells Mr Johnson: "There can be no doubt that you understood what the guidance and rules meant and were intended to achieve"

📷A picture of the event Mr Johnson is being asked about by Sir Bernard Jenkin.

telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/…

🔴Sir Bernard Jenkin flags three witness statements attesting to a lack of social distancing at a second event on November 27, 2020.

Boris Johnson replies that he was not at the event - before proceedings are interrupted by another Commons vote

🔴More from Boris Johnson's defence:

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🔴Boris Johnson and Sir Bernard Jenkin continue their back-and-forth over the guidance.

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🔴Now in focus is the "birthday party" held for Boris Johnson on June 19, 2020 and the garden drinks for Downing Street staff on May 20, 2020.

#PrivilegesCommittee

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🔴Yvonne Fovargue, the Labour MP for Makerfield, points to multiple remarks he made weeks before both gatherings that "people should be limiting" their contact with others.

#PrivilegesCommittee

Here's Johnson's response:

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🔴Fovargue turns to the event on May 20, 2020.

Boris Johnson insists he had not seen the infamous 'bring your own booze' email". He continued:

telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/… #PrivilegesCommittee

🔴 Johnson says the fixed penalty notice "boggled my mind because I couldn't understand why I got it".

#PrivilegesCommittee

He continued:
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🔴Johnson says: “This is guidance. And I’m not going to pretend that it was enforced rigidly.”

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🔴"There's at least one adviser that I can think of who has asked not to be named," Johnson tells #PrivilegesCommittee.

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🔴Latest: Boris Johnson loses cool as he accuses Privileges Committee of 'complete nonsense'.

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🔴 Johnson's temper flared in response to a line of questioning from Sir Bernard Jenkin who suggested he had not sought sufficient advice before denying there had been any Downing Street parties in lockdown

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🗣 Boris Johnson has lost his cool at the Privileges Committee as he accused its members of "complete nonsense"

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🗣Boris Johnson's supporters are already weighing in.

Nadine Dorries, a former culture secretary, said Mr Johnson was "very clear today".

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🗣Dominic Cummings has been posting his own updates on his Substack website.

""[Boris Johnson's] whole defence rested on claims that he was repeating to the Commons assurances he'd been given by senior officials," Mr Cummings said.

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At the end of today's three-hour evidence session, is there a smoking gun?

Read our analysis here ⤵️
telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/…