Boris Johnson is facing accusations that he “lied” to an investigation into donations for refurbishment of the Downing Street flat where he lives with his wife Carrie, after a watchdog fined the Conservatives £17,800 over the affair.
Downing Street has insisted the Prime Minister was honest when responding to a probe by his standards adviser on the source of funding for the works.
The Tories were fined on Thursday after the Electoral Commission said the party had failed to follow the law on accurately reporting donations by Lord Brownlow in October 2020 to help cover the renovations, with costs exceeding £112,500.
The commission’s report raised further questions because it said Mr Johnson had sent the peer a WhatsApp message in November 2020 “asking him to authorise further, at that stage unspecified, refurbishment works on the residence”, to which he agreed.
But the PM had told a previous probe by ministerial standards adviser Lord Geidt that he had no knowledge of the payments until immediately prior to media reports in February 2021.
Downing Street insisted Mr Johnson did not mislead Lord Geidt because he did not know Lord Brownlow was providing the money to a “blind trust” the peer was organising.
But Labour Deputy Leader Angela Rayner accused Mr Johnson of having “lied” to his standards adviser by saying he did not know who was behind the payment.
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She called for a fresh probe from Lord Geidt, and for Parliamentary Standards Commission Kathryn Stone to investigate Mr Johnson, saying he was “in flagrant breach” of both the MPs’ code of conduct and the ministerial code.
“The Prime Minister must now explain why he lied to the British public saying he didn’t know who was behind No 11 flat refurb – all the while he was WhatsApping the donor asking for more money,” she said.
“Boris Johnson has taken the British public for fools. He’s not only broken the law but made a mockery of the standards we expect from our prime ministers.”
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “Lord Brownlow was the chair of a blind trust and acted in accordance with his experience of managing blind trusts in that way, the Prime Minister’s discussions with Lord Brownlow were done without him knowing the underlying donor of that donation.”
Amid suggestions Lord Geidt could resign if he was misled, the spokesman said he remained in post and that Mr Johnson had full confidence in him, but the spokesman could not say whether Lord Geidt had been shown the WhatsApp exchanges.
In his report from May, Lord Geidt said that despite “some limited” contact during the period in question, the “record shows no evidence that the Prime Minister had been informed by Lord Brownlow that he had personally settled the total costs”.
For the “credibility of this inquiry”, Lord Geidt said he tested the assertions that Mr Johnson did not know “either the fact or the method of the costs of refurbishing the apartment having been paid”.
He said the individuals involved “confirmed to me that these assertions are correct”, adding: “I have also spoken in similar terms to the Prime Minister who confirms that he knew nothing about such payments until immediately prior to media reports in February 2021.”
But the Electoral Commission said that on November 29 last year Mr Johnson sent a WhatsApp message to Lord Brownlow “asking him to authorise further, at that stage unspecified, refurbishment works on the residence”.
“Lord Brownlow agreed to do so, and also explained that the proposed trust had not yet been set up but that he knew where the funding was coming from,” the report added.
