Kemi Badenoch says government shouldn’t have been fined for partygate

The Partygate scandal was ‘overblown’ and the Government should not have fined people for breaking lockdown rules, Kemi Badenoch has said.

Ms Badenoch appeared on the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg – a day after beating Robert Jenrick to become leader of the Conservative Party.

And the first Black woman to lead a major UK political party wasted no time in sticking to her promise to be ‘honest’ about what her predecessors got wrong.

When asked about what went wrong with Boris Johnson’s government, she said: ‘I thought he was a great prime minister, but there were some serious issues that were not being resolved and I think that during that tenure the public thought that we were not speaking for them or looking out for them.

‘We were in it for ourselves.’

Ms Badenoch – the MP for north west Essex – went on to claim that the Partygate scandal – which saw numerous locking-breaking parties held in Downing Street during the pandemic – was ‘overblown’.

‘Some of those things I think were perception issues, a lot of the stuff that happened around Partygate was not why I resigned,’ she said.

‘I thought that it was overblown. We should not have created Fixed Penalty Notices, for example. That was us not going with our principles.’

She later added that the public was ‘not wrong to be upset about Partygate’ but claimed that criminalising breaking lockdown rules went too far.

‘The problem was that we should not have criminalised every day activities the way that we did,’ she said.

‘People going out for walks, all of them having Fixed Penalty Notices, that was what ended up creating a trap for Boris Johnson.’

Mr Johnson, his wife Carrie Johnson and fellow former prime minister Rishi Sunak were among dozens of people fined for breaking the lockdown rules they helped create.

The scandal caused a public outcry, and prompted a damming inquiry led by Sue Gray – who has since gone on to advise Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour government.

Ms Badenoch later left Mr Johnson’s government but insisted the Partygate wasn’t the reason why she resigned.

Instead, it was his handling of the Chris Pincher scandal in July 2022 which centred on allegations of sexual misconduct by the former Conservative deputy chief whip.

Mr Johnson initially claimed that he had no knowledge of the claims – which predated Mr Pincher’s appointment – before conceding he did.

Combined with the furore around Partygate, the scandal prompted a slew of resignations that eventually sounded the death knell of Mr Johnson’s government.

Addressing the scandal, Ms Badenoch said: ‘With the Chris Pincher scandal, when ministers were sent out to say things that were not true.

‘That’s when I decided that things had gone too far.’

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