UK Prime Minister Boris Jonhson is likely to receive three more fines for lockdown breaching parties, local media reports have stated.
Johnson is believed to have attended six of the 12 lockdown parties, which are under scrutiny, and has already been fined for one – his birthday party in the Cabinet Room on 19 June 2020 which was organised by his wife Carrie.
According to the Daily Telegraph, the embattled prime minister would be punished for allegedly attending a leaving party for his former director of communications, Lee Cain, even as the police investigation is pending for two more events.
The November 13 event “is considered to be the most serious breach of the Coronavirus regulations among the events that the prime minister attended,” an unnamed source close to the investigation told the newspaper.
The latest report comes in the wake of cabinet David Wolfson resigning from the office on Wednesday after Johnson and finance minister Rishi Sunak were handed fines for attending parties in 2020 when the nation was under lockdown.
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Wolfson said he was resigning not only because of the prime minister’s “own conduct” but also “the official response to what took place”, reported the Guardian.
He said the behaviour stood in stark contrast to many in society who “complied with the rules at great personal cost, and others were fined or prosecuted for similar, and sometimes apparently more trivial, offences”.
Meanwhile, amid growing calls for his resignation, the prime minister had refused to step down from the office and instead offered an apology.
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“I understand the anger that many feel that I, myself, fell short when it came to observing the very rules which the government I lead had introduced to protect the public. And I accept in all sincerity that people had the right to expect better. And now I feel an even greater sense of obligation to deliver on the priorities of the British people,” the premier said on Tuesday.
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(With inputs from agencies)
