for northern ireland has been passed despite a rebellion from his backbenchers. we begin here in the uk, where the former prime minister, borisjohnson, has denied lying to parliament. he s been giving evidence to a parliamentary committee that ll determine whether he deliberately misled mps about attending parties during covid lockdowns. he acknowledged that he had misled parliament, but said that was inadvertent, and again apologised. let s hear mrjohnson s opening statement. the purpose of this inquiry is not to reopen party gate it s to discover whether or not i lied to parliament and wittingly misled colleagues and what i knew and believed about those gatherings when i set the rules and the guidance had been followed at number ten.
others did not believe it was necessary or possible to have a two metre or one metre electrified force field around every human being and indeed, that is emphatically not with the guidance prescribes. borisjohnson says he was given repeated assurances no rules were broken and that nobody gave any advice to the contrary . i was trying to run the country during a pandemic on the evening in question, the 30th of november 2021, as dealing with the emergence of the omicron variant and the growing clamourfor omicron variant and the growing clamour for restrictions on another christmas. i could not drop but i was doing, get up and institute a personal investigation into its unelected daily mirror try on and on on an event does almost a year old. i had to rely on and was fully entitled to rely on what i was told by my senior trusted advisers. and here mrjohnson insisted
therefore the public the latest chapter in the whole episode around these parties and gatherings are held in downing street during lockdown, there has been an investigation by a senior civil servant in a police investigation that resulted in more than a hundred finds being handed out and it s not about whether or not parties to place, whether rules are broken it s about whether boris johnson light to the house of commons, lie to his fellow mps about what he knew and when and this is therefore, a matter of his reputation. his integrity because remember, he lost power and he was removed from office under the cloud of accusations of lies and not telling the truth and this is crucially important to him and as to whether mps here are reacting, think it s very difficult to see how any mps have changed their minds on the back of what they ve heard a herd robust defence and his supporters thing yes, he s answered all the questions and presented everything
whether boris johnson not about rules were broken, it s whether borisjohnson lied to the house of commons, lied to his fellow mps about what he knew and when. this is therefore a matter of his reputation, his integrity because remember, he lost power, he was removed from office under the cloud of accusations, of laws are not telling the truth. this is crucially important for him. as to whether mps here are reacting, it s difficult to see how any mps have changed their minds on the back of what they have heard. you ve heard robust defence for some of his supporters. talking about what he knew in hindsight. defending the culture of work in downing street, mps who support him say look, he made his case very strongly and it would be ridiculous for this committee to find he deliberately misled mps. similarly, mps who had their suspicions about mrjohnson come about questioning his account of events, they have not
let s get more now on former uk prime minister borisjohnson s grilling by a committee of mps on whether he intentionally misled parliament over lockdown era gatherings at number ten. he s been pressed repeatedly over how he could not have known that various events, including leaving dos, breached guidance and rules. 0ur political editor chris mason brought us this analysis of the day s events. suspecting in the courts of the public opinion, plenty of decisions have been made amongst our viewers. as far as the mps are concerned, they now have to go away and look at they now have to go away and look at the testimony from this afternoon, compare it with the reams of written testimony from officials and former advisers and try and work out if the