It’s not often that a serving prime minister or president is fined by the country’s administration. But Boris Johnson is a leader of a different genre.
In May 2021, Johnson became the first British PM to get married while in office that too during the Covid epidemic – in nearly 200 years. While Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin followed Johnson, there is also the example of New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern who, in January 2022, cancelled her wedding after her nation imposed new restrictions to slow the community spread of the Omicron variant. I’m no different to thousands of other New Zealanders who have had much more devastating impacts felt by the pandemic, said Ardern.
Is a prime minister different from other people in the country? London’s Metropolitan Police certainly didn’t think so when it fined Johnson, his wife, and the chancellor Rishi Sunak for attending a birthday party thrown for the prime minister at Downing Street on 19 June 2020. Gatherings of more than two people were banned in Britain at the time of the party to curb the spread of Covid- 19. The penalty certainly made Johnson the first British prime minister ever found to have broken the law while in office.
The opposition’s reaction is predictable. Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak must both resign following the probe into Partygate, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has said. Angela Rayner, the deputy leader of the Labour Party, said Johnson has not only broken the law but made a mockery of the standards we expect from our prime ministers. All three Mr and Mrs Johnson and Sunak apologised, but Johnson and Sunak have rejected calls to resign. Johnson is different from other prime ministers Britain has seen in recent memory. One of Johnson’s former ministerial colleagues explained Johnson was like a character from a P.G. Wodehouse novel, possessed of extraordinary charm and humour, and with a big brain unfortunately not always plugged in. Also, there have been many allegations in the past of Johnson lying. He was fired from his first proper job as a journalist for dishonesty and fired from his first major political role for being economical with the truth. When the news of a big Christmas party at the Prime Ministers’ official residence during the Covid period broke in the media, instead of apologising for the insensitivity of holding a bash, Johnson told the House of Commons that no such party had taken place.
Johnson didn’t quit after being fined but Matt Hancock did so when, in June 2021, the then British health minister was caught breaking Covid rules by kissing and embracing an aide in his office. Hancock resigned, saying he had let the people down. Interestingly, while Johnson might have rejected the call to resign this time around, Lord’s justice minister David Wolfson quit, not only because of the prime minister’s own conduct but also the official response to what took place.
Meager £50 fines were imposed on Johnson and Sunak. Several events at No. 10 are not yet fully investigated by the Metropolitan police, posing a further threat to the PMs position. A potential penalty of a few hundred pounds more?
Well, that may not severely harm Johnson financially, but what would be its political impact on the future of Johnson and Sunak, as public perception really matters?
Johnson is not the first prime minister to be fined for violating the Covid rules. Norwegian police, interestingly, believe that a prime minister is different from other people in the country. Exactly one year ago, in April 2021, then Norway prime minister Erna Solberg was fined 20,000 Norwegian kroner (about $2,350 or 2,000 at that time) by police when she organised an event for her 60th birthday with 13 family members at a mountain resort, despite a government ban on gatherings of more than 10 people. According to Norway’s police, fining the country’s foremost elected official and the leading figure in the government’s decisions on countering the pandemic was necessary to uphold the general publics’ trust in the rules on social restrictions. The prime minister’s husband, who jointly organised the party, and the restaurant where the celebration took place, however, were not fined despite breaking the rule. Thus, penalising the prime minister was certainly an attempt to uphold the general publics’ trust in the rules. I was really amazed to learn the explanation given by Police Commissioner Ole Saeverud on fining the prime minister: Even if the law is equal for everyone, everyone is not equal. In many places of the world, everyone certainly is not equal but in the other way, we know.
After the event came to light, like Johnson, Solberg also made a public apology and said she was prepared to pay potential fines. But, unlike in Britain, the parliamentary election of Norway was scheduled for a few months. Incidentally, Solberg’s Conservative party’s popularity kept decreasing after April and the party lost the 2021 Norwegian election in September. How Norway’s Partygate impacted the election outcome was not quite clear though an election outcome is a combination of many issues.
Thus, although Johnson offered a full apology, what would be the impact of the Partygate fine on Johnson’s political career, the Conservative party’s leadership, and the political landscape of the UK in the near future? This is not quite clear at the moment. The price of this £50 may be immense in politics. Or, it may be insignificant. Everything depends on the concerned society. And, as we know, while everyone is not equal, every country or every society is also not quite equal.
(The writer is a Professor of Statistics, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata)