The Metropolitan police commissioner has effectively said that there will be a new inquiry into lockdown breaches in Westminster after a video from a Conservative Christmas party attracted the attention of detectives. Sir Mark Rowley was speaking after video emerged of a December 2020 party surfaced this weekend, sparking outrage. Britain’s top officer, when asked if a new investigation would follow, told an interviewer: “I think we can all guess which way it will go.” The Metropolitan police believe the video counts as new material potentially relating to alleged breaches of Covid rules. The event was billed as a “jingle and mingle” party, and held in December 2020 for Shaun Bailey, then campaigning to be mayor of London, when indoor socialising was banned. Crucially the Met has said the footage was not discovered by an earlier investigation it held into that event, which uncovered a photo of the party. Rowley told the NewsAgents podcast: “As people know, that case has been previously looked at based on a photo. It’s very obvious a video tells a much richer, clearer story than a photo. And so, the team are looking at that with a view to whether that provides a basis for further investigation.” Rowley added: “I think we can all see the colourful nature of the video and how much it tells a story way beyond the original photo. I need to let a team work through that but I think we can all guess which way it will go.”
During the “jingle and mingle” event, on video unearthed by the Mirror, one person can be heard saying that filming is all right “as long as we don’t stream that we’re, like, bending the rules”. The Met said on Monday it was “assessing video footage that was not previously provided to officers when investigating an event in Matthew Parker Street on 14 December 2020”. The Met is also looking at other material relating to further potential breaches involving the former prime minister Boris Johnson at Chequers, and was passed to police by the Cabinet Office as they prepared for the official inquiry into the government’s handling of Covid. The Met said it was “assessing material referred by the Cabinet Office to the Met and Thames Valley police regarding potential breaches of the regulations between June 2020 and May 2021 at Downing Street and Chequers”.
Responding to the allegations about potential Covid breaches at Chequers a spokesperson for Johnson said: “This was entirely lawful, and it was covered by relevant provisions in the Covid regulations. To suggest otherwise is totally untrue.” The third event is alleged to involve Conservative MP Bernard Jenkin, who sat on the privileges committee inquiry that damned Johnson last week for misleading parliament about Downing Street lockdown parties. The Met said it was “assessing a report to the Met on Thursday 15 June regarding media reporting of alleged breaches in parliament”. An ally of Jenkin said it was a work event held by senior figures in the Women2Win network, which encourages more Tory women to stand for political office, and that he arrived to collect his wife. The force insisted its previous investigation into Westminster lockdown breaches was thorough, and as evidence of that said that it had issued 126 fixed-penalty notices against 83 individuals under Operation Hillman. It said any new investigation would need to be into “a serious and flagrant breach, be proportionate and when those involved knew or ought to have known what they were doing was an offence”. Other factors include where declining to investigate “would significantly undermine the legitimacy of the law” and where “there was little ambiguity around the absence of a reasonable defence”. The 14 December 2020 event was attended by Bailey, who was last week ennobled in Johnson’s resignation honours list. The Conservatives say four people were disciplined over the event. A spokesperson for the Bailey campaign has said: “This is an old story. We repeatedly apologised for this event at the time. It was subject to a nearly year-long police investigation. The matter is closed.” Last year the Met decided not to refer people at the party for fines after a photo emerged of it, believing it was not enough evidence to “disprove the version of events” provided by attenders.