Boris Johnson news – live: Senior Tory says PM unfit for office after Partygate fine

Senior Conservative MP Mark Harper has called for Boris Johnson to step down over his Partygate fine – saying the prime minister was “no longer worthy” of the office.

The influential backbencher said: “We have a PM who broke the rules that he told the public to follow, hasn’t been straightforward about it – and is now going to ask the decent men and women on these benches to defend the indefensible.”

Mr Harper told the Commons: “I’m very sorry to have to say this, but I no longer think he is worthy of the great office that he holds.”

More follows from Adam Forrest:

Deputy leader of the Labour Party Angela Rayner tweeted following Boris Johnson’s apology on being fined over the Partygate scandal.

She wrote: “It ‘did not occur’ to Boris Johnson that he was breaking his own law.”

Ms Rayner posted a picture from an NHS advert in the tweet, where a woman wearing an oxygen mask is looking into the camera.

The photo, which was also tweeted by Labour MP Wes Streeting earlier today, is captioned: “Look in her eyes and tell her you never bend the rules.”

Asked by the Conservative MP for Wellingborough, Peter Bone, whether he misled the Commons over his involvement in the Partygate saga, Boris Johnson said: “No.”

In his statement to the house, Mr Johnson earlier said: “It did not occur to me then or subsequently that a gathering in the Cabinet Room just before a vital meeting on Covid strategy could amount to a breach of the rules.”

Karl Turner, Labour MP for Kingston-upon-Hull East, has questioned the prime minsiter’s position on his fixed penalty notice, saying that if Mr Johnson thinks “the Met have got the wrong end of stick, why doesn’t he challenge his penalties?”

The PM responded, saying: “I respect the decision of the police.”

Mark Harper, Conservative MP for the Forest of Dean, has said he believes Boris Johnson is “no longer worthy of the great office that he holds.”

He said: “I strongly support the Government’s actions in standing up to Putin’s aggression and helping Ukraine defend itself and our values and it’s exactly at times like this that our country needs a Prime Minister who exemplifies those values.

“I regret to say that we have a Prime Minister who broke the laws that he told the country they had to follow, hasn’t been straightforward about it and is now going to ask the decent men and women on these benches to defend what I think is indefensible.

“I’m very sorry to have to say this, but I no longer think he is worthy of the great office that he holds.”

For those who missed it, here are is the PM’s statement on his Partygate fine in full:

“As soon as I received the notice, I acknowledged the hurt and anger and I said that people had a right to expect better of their Prime Minister - and I repeat that, Mr Speaker, again in the House now.

“Let me also say, not by way of mitigation or excuse but purely because it explains my previous words in this House, that it did not occur to me then or subsequently that a gathering in the Cabinet Room just before a vital meeting on Covid strategy could amount to a breach of the rules.

“I repeat that was my mistake and I apologise for it unreservedly.

“I respect the outcome of the police investigation, which is still under way, and I can only say that I will respect their decision-making and always take the appropriate steps.”

Mr Johnson said he has taken “significant steps” to change the way things work in No 10.

He continued: “It is precisely because I know that so many people are angry and disappointed that I feel an even greater sense of obligation to deliver on the priorities of the British people.

“And to respond in the best traditions of our country, to Putin’s barbaric onslaught against Ukraine.”

Sir Keir continues: “Plenty didn’t agree with the rules the PM wrote, but they followed them regardless.”

“They understand that the rules apply to all of us.”

“What a joke,” says Keir Starmer, responding to Boris Johnson’s “merely-mouthed apology.”

He accused the prime minister of stirring up a “new set of defletctions and distortions” in his address to the house of the Commons over his involvement in the Partygate saga today.

Sir Keir said that, despite the PMs apology, the “damage had already been done”, adding that the British public “don’t believe a words PM says.”

Addressing MPs in the Commons this afternoon, prime minister Boris Johnson offered a “whole-hearted apology” to the house that his presence at a lockdown-breaking gathering