As much as British Prime Minister Boris Johnson would like to put the entire partygate scandal behind him, it’s just not going to go away. Despite apologizing multiple times for his “poor judgement,” BoJo has continued to insist that any final decisions would need to wait until the full report from investigator Sue Gray came out. Well, that happened this morning and if anyone was worried that the long-time civil servant was going to go easy on the boss, they can forget those concerns. Gray investigated 16 different gatherings that took place at 10 Downing Street and found most of the activity to have been inappropriate and in violation of the lockdown restrictions that Johnson’s administration had placed on the rest of the country. She described a “culture of rule-breaking” and concluded that all responsibility must rest “at the top” So what will BoJo and the leaders of his party do now? (Associated Press)

A report into lockdown-breaching U.K. government parties published Wednesday said blame for a “culture” of rule-breaking in Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s office must rest with those at the top.

Senior civil servant Sue Gray’s long-awaited report into the “partygate” scandal said the “senior leadership team … must bear responsibility” for a culture that allowed events to take place that “should not have been allowed to happen.”

Gray investigated 16 gatherings attended by Johnson and his staff in 2020 and 2021 while people in the U.K. were barred from socializing under coronavirus restrictions imposed by Johnson’s Conservative government.

Johnson has resisted multiple calls for him to resign over this including some from members of his own party. In speeches delivered before Parliament, he has apologized for “poor decisions,” but insisted that no parties took place and no laws were broken. Gray’s report suggests that those statements were untrue. Prime Ministers who are found to have lied to Parliament are expected to resign.

So was this a case of Johnson knowingly lying about it or is it possible that he really didn’t believe the gatherings could be considered “parties,” so there was nothing wrong going on? The latter seems to be Johnson’s position, but he might have a hard time selling that. Sue Gray found invitations to events described as “bring your own booze” gatherings. There were also invitations to “wine time Fridays.” How dense would the man have to be to not recognize that any reasonable person would see those as party invitations? Or perhaps the better question might be, how stupid does he think the members of Parliament are?

As to assigning responsibility, Gray explained that the junior staffers should not be held accountable. They received invitations from their superiors and saw those superiors attending the events. Why would they suspect that anything was inappropriate? That’s why she is fixing the blame on the Prime Minister and his senior leadership.

BoJo doesn’t seem like the type to just resign in disgrace. But he may not have much of a choice. If 54 members of the Conservative Party write letters calling for a vote of no confidence, the vote will be automatically triggered. If he loses that vote he will be replaced as Conservative leader and prime minister. After repeatedly telling Parliament that everyone needed to wait until the final report came out, Boris Johnson appears to be running out of excuses quickly.