The leader of the Scottish Conservatives has told Boris Johnson to quit as prime minister if he is found to have misled parliament over a lockdown-breaking Christmas party in Downing Street.
Douglas Ross said the prime minister had “serious questions” to answer about the gathering, which took place last year while gatherings were banned, and contradicted Johnson’s narrative on the issue.
The prime minister has repeatedly said that no festivities took place but Ross said it was clear a “party of sorts” had taken place.
“If the prime minister knew about this party last December, knew about this party last week, and was still denying it, then that is the most serious allegation,” Ross told the BBC.
“There is absolutely no way you can mislead parliament and think you could get off with that. No one should continue in their post if they mislead parliament in that way.”
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In a separate interview with STV, Ross appeared to suggest there was a high possibility of that outcome. He said Johnson’s statements to the House of Commons last week appear to be “very different to what he’s saying this week and the video evidence that has emerged since then”.
Ross, who was the only minister to quit over Dominic Cummings’s trip to Barnard Castle during the first lockdown when he resigned from the Scotland Office, had waited to watch Johnson’s performance at prime minister’s questions before deciding to speak to broadcasters.
He was left unimpressed but unsurprised by the answers offered to MPs, and briefed his MSPs on what he was planning at a group meeting at Holyrood before taking to the airwaves.
“Last December I didn’t have the same Christmas with my family, with my parents, and that’s nothing compared to the sacrifice of people who lost loved ones during this pandemic, who couldn’t see people in hospital,” Ross told STV.
“So I’m angry for them and I’m angry at the way this has been handled because people just want honesty from their politicians, from the government and across the political spectrum, and there are serious questions to be answered.”
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He accused Johnson of undermining faith in coronavirus regulations in his handling of the controversy.
“You can’t escape that,” he said. “This has now been going on for over a week; two prime minister’s question sessions have [been] dominated by a party within Downing Street rather than the public health message about getting vaccinated, about getting your booster vaccination and following the guidance to stop the spread.”
Ruth Davidson, the former leader of the Scottish Tories, who has had an uneasy relationship with Johnson, described the prime minister’s performance as “pathetic”.
She tweeted: “None of this is remotely defensible. Not having busy, boozy not-parties while others were sticking to the rules, unable to visit ill or dying loved ones.
”Nor flat-out denying things that are easily provable. Not taking the public for fools.
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”And today’s ‘we’ll investigate what we’ve spent a week saying didn’t happen and discipline staff for rules we continue to say weren’t broken’ was pathetic. As a Tory, I was brought up to believe in playing with a straight bat. Believe me, colleagues are furious at this, too.”
Although there was anger among Scottish Conservative MSPs, not all Tories at Holyrood turned their fire on the prime minister. Stephen Kerr, the party’s chief whip, tweeted it was “a source of embarrassment to me as a Scot that people may think the bilious nastiness of Ian Blackford is typical of us” following the SNP Westminster leader’s performance during prime minister’s questions.
Blackford said the prime minister “can no longer lead on the most pressing issue facing these islands” and called on MPs to remove Johnson if he does not resign.
Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish first minister, also questioned the accuracy of Johnson’s previous comments to the Commons, saying: “On the face of it, I don’t see how the prime minister’s accounts can be squared with what is now in the public domain.”
