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The commission has been looking into whether any funds used to pay for the apartment renovation should have been declared under the law on political donations. The spokesperson said the commission has been in contact with Johnsonโs Conservative Party over the past month.
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| The door of 10 Downing Street is seen in London, Tuesday, April 27, 2021. Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson has denied a press report which quoted him as allegedly saying he would rather see “bodies pile high in their thousands” than impose a third national lockdown on the country. Media reports have claimed that Johnson made the comment in the fall of 2020, when his government imposed a second lockdown to combat a surge in coronavirus cases. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham) |
Britainโs Electoral Commission, which regulates political finance in the U.K, is launching a formal investigation of the refurbishment of Prime Minister Boris Johnsonโs apartment on Downing Street, saying there were โreasonable groundsโ to suspect an offense had been committed.
A commission spokesperson said Wednesday that the agency is โnow satisfied that there are reasonable grounds to suspect that an offense or offenses may have occurredโ and that a formal investigation would take place.
The commission has been looking into whether any funds used to pay for the apartment renovation should have been declared under the law on political donations. The spokesperson said the commission has been in contact with Johnsonโs Conservative Party over the past month.
Questions about the refurbishment intensified last week when Johnsonโs former top aide, Dominic Cummings, claimed that the prime minister planned to get Conservative Party donors to fund the work. Cummings, who left his job late last year, said he had told Johnson the plan was โunethical, foolish, possibly illegal.โ
Johnson lives in the apartment with fiancรฉe Carrie Symonds and their baby son, Wilfred.
Johnsonโs office said the prime minister himself paid to renovate the apartment, though it did not say whether he had been lent the money for the work. The cost of the refurbishment is thought to have been around 60,000 pounds ($83,000).
โThe investigation will determine whether any transactions relating to the works at 11 Downing Street fall within the regime regulated by the Commission and whether such funding was reported as required,โ the Electoral Commission spokesperson said.
AP
