On Tuesday he’ll face MPs for the first time since he was fined for breaching Covid rules - and then address fellow Tory MPs in the evening.
No 10 sources stress he will apologise again to MPs for Covid breaches in Downing Street, and say he understands the strength of feeling around breaches of Covid restrictions at the heart of government.
Boris Johnson may want to focus on issues such as the Ukraine crisis and the plan to send some asylum seekers to Rwanda.
But opposition parties will want to turn the attention to him becoming the first serving prime minister to be sanctioned for breaking the law.
On Wednesday, he faces a Prime Minister’s Questions from the opposition, after a weekend where the Sunday Times reported claims he was involved in “instigating” a leaving do in November 2020, which Downing Street deny.
All the while he will be hoping more fines don’t land in his inbox from police investigating Covid breaches in government.
Boris Johnson is set to apologise for breaking his own lockdown laws when he makes his first statement to MPs since being fined by police. Mr Johnson has vowed to “set the record straight” when he speaks to MPs at about 16.30 BST. The prime minister is expected to say he did not knowingly break the rules (1) at a 2020 birthday party at No 10.
Opposition parties have accused him of lying to Parliament after he previously told them no rules had been broken. MPs will vote on Thursday on whether the Commons privileges committee should launch an investigation into the issue.
Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle accepted Labour’s request for a vote earlier, adding he had decided there was an “arguable case to be examined”.
It’s not as if [Johnson] walked into a rave in Ibiza.
The prime minister was there for a very short time. He was eating a salad lunch in the Cabinet room with people he worked with all day. People kept popping in.
The ways it’s been characterised, you would think there were pole dancers.
He was, in a sense, ambushed with a cake.
He’s not robbed a bank. This is getting out of control.
Tories defend the indefensible with the derisible …
Government whips scrambled on Wednesday night to derail a Labour motion designed to trigger a Commons inquiry into whether Johnson lied about rule-breaking in Downing Street – including the potential release of hundreds of damaging messages and photographs.
Amid a growing backlash from Tory MPs, the government privately conceded it could not whip them to block an inquiry by the Commons privileges committee. It instead tabled a motion to delay the inquiry until after the publication of the final Partygate report by Sue Gray, a senior civil servant.
Thursday’s motion gives four examples of Johnson assuring MPs, including him being “repeatedly assured since these allegations emerged that there was no party and that no Covid rules were broken”.
The motion also says the inquiry should begin after the conclusion of the Met investigation, with Johnson expected to receive at least three more fines for breaches in the coming weeks.
Among frontbenchers there was palpable disquiet that MPs should be forced to block an investigation into the prime minister, who received a police fixed-penalty notice last week.
One minister admitted it would be hard to justify Johnson avoiding an investigation for potentially misleading parliament, saying: “If it’s the same process every MP faces, then why should it be different for the PM?”
A government spokesperson said: “The government has tabled an amendment to Labour’s motion which says that consideration of this matter should take place after the conclusion of the police investigation and the publication of the Cabinet Office [Sue Gray] report, allowing MPs to have all the facts at their disposal.”
In a major U-turn, the government has ditched an attempt to delay a new inquiry into whether Boris Johnson misled parliament over Partygate.
Amid fears of a rebellion, it was reported that Tory MPs would be whipped to back a last-ditch government amendment which sought to delay a vote for an inquiry by the privileges committee until after the conclusion of the Metropolitan Police investigation.
But in an apparent climbdown moments before the debate, Commons leader Mark Harper announced that “the vote on the unamended House business will be a free vote to all Conservative MPs”.
Labour has threatened to plaster the names of MPs who block the inquiry across election leaflets, and accused the prime minister of seeking to distract from his domestic woes with his two-day trip to India.
The SNP’s Ian Blackford has called Boris Johnson a liar during the debate.
Normally an MP is required to withdraw such an accusation towards a fellow member of the Commons or be ejected from the chamber by the speaker, as Blackford was himself in January.
But for this debate Sir Lindsay Hoyle said it is “perfectly in order for honourable members to question the veracity of the prime minister’s responses to the House cited in the motion”.
However, it is not in order for MPs to question his truthfulness more generally or in relation to other matters.
Liar, liar, pants on fire, nose as long as a telephone wire!
After a day which began with the government attempting to delay a vote on holding a Commons inquiry into the PM, it all finished with a bit of a fizzle, rather than reaching a level of fever-pitch excitement.
It looked as though the government were seeking to change Labour’s motion this morning, putting any investigation into whether the prime minister misled parliament to a future unspecified date.
Moments before the debate started, the government said they wouldn’t be putting forward their amendment. As the afternoon went on, Conservative MPs were told they no longer had to vote to help Boris Johnson, the three-line whip was removed, and slowly the Tory benches got quieter as the debate wore on.
We didn’t even get a full vote. Opposition, and some Conservative MPs, will have shouted yes to whether or not to open an investigation. No-one shouted no to the motion.
At that point, it was passed, without any formal 15-minute window for MPs to cast their vote in the division lobbies.
Bear in mind, this does not mean the investigation will start straight away. The motion specifically said the investigation should start after the publication of the Sue Gray report. That report will not be published until the Metropolitan Police has finished its investigation and issued fixed penalty notices.
Several newspapers are leading with the decision by MPs to launch an inquiry into whether Prime Minister Boris Johnson deliberately misled Parliament over lockdown parties in Downing Street. The Telegraph reports Mr Johnson has said he has “nothing to hide” over the fresh Partygate investigation. It says the PM made an “about turn” over plans to block it after Tory MPs rebelled amid fears it would cost them at the local elections.
“The gig is up, Boris”, is the Metro’s headline - repeating a call from Conservative MP Steve Baker for the prime minister to resign. The paper says the influential backbencher, who had originally praised Mr Johnson’s “humble” apology, later accused the PM of an “orgy of adulation” at a gathering of Tory backbenchers.
The Times reports that ministers were on the “brink of quitting” before the government changed course. The paper says at least six members of the government had told whips they would not support the plans to block the Labour Party’s motion to launch an inquiry, describing the row as a “revolt of middle ranks” which forced the “humiliating climbdown”.
The new investigation will have “power to demand photos” from parties in No 10, reports the i. The paper quotes a Tory MP who criticises No 10’s "shambolic" U-turn, saying it has made the party look like “idiots” and claiming the fault lies with the PM, rather than the party whips.
The Guardian’s headline describes the events as a “day of humiliation” for Mr Johnson, reporting that the rebellion and calls for him to resign dealt “blows to his authority”. The paper also notes the “widespread anger” among Tory MPs, quoting an email to constituents by former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt who described the fines issued to the PM and Chancellor Rishi Sunak as “shocking and disappointing”.
BREAKING: MPs Vote Against Boris Johnson - YouTube