London’s Metropolitan Police have referred themselves to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) after complaints about their refusal to alleged lockdown-busting Christmas parties at the Prime Minister’s residence.
The police declined to investigate an alleged party that took place at Downing Street on the 18th of December 2020, at a time when work Christmas parties were banned by the government and London was in Tier 3 lockdown, which banned residents from different households mixing indoors.
The alleged party came to light nearly a year later on November 30th when the press reported that a party of between 40-50 people took place in Downing Street. This was shortly followed by a clip being leaked to the media which showed Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s former press secretary, Allegra Stratton, joking about the alleged gathering.
The leaked recording showed a rehearsal press briefing from December 22nd, 2020, four days after the event took place and revealed around a dozen Number 10 staff joking about “cheese and wine” and the fact that the event “definitely was not socially distanced”.
This exposé prompted Ms Stratton’s resignation.
The Metropolitan Police have so far not investigated the event, claiming “it is our policy not to routinely investigate retrospective breaches of the COVID-19 regulations”.
However, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) has confirmed that the Met police had referred themselves for investigation on the 17th of December.
This referral followed a complaint to the IOPC by Green Party peer Baroness Jenny Jones of Moulsecoomb, who said the police not investigating the alleged party was a “conflict of interest and a potential cover-up”.
Baroness Jones also accused the police of having a “likely role” in “facilitating, aiding, and abetting the unlawful gathering”.
There are multiple police officers as well as secret service operatives who guard Downing Street, and at least one police constable is on the door of Number 10 at all times when the Prime Minister is in residence — not to mention the vast array of CCTV cameras that protect the area — so it is highly likely that some police officers were aware of the event.
Ken Marsh, chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, has rejected the idea that the police were complicit in the party, however, claiming that “those outside would not hear a thing that was going on inside the building”.
Comedian Ricky Gervais has weighed in on the party controversy, lambasting the government over their alleged lockdown breaches on a Twitter livestream:
“Do you know what the worst thing is as well? Apart from the pandemic, and the devastation, and the deaths, and the strain on the health service, and people losing their livelihoods and that, the worst thing is the fucking c***s in charge do what they want. And I see all the parties they were having and all the stuff they were doing, and people saying ‘that was the day I couldn’t see my mum in hospital’ or ‘I couldn’t go to my dad’s funeral’, because the people in charge, the posh privileged people in charge, were acting like f**king Charlie Sheen. I mean really f**king rubbing salt in the wound. And as I say, I don’t get political, but they’re all s**t. When are we going to stop taking ‘went to Eton’ as a qualification to run the country?”
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