UPDATE 2 - UK premier apologizes over Downing Street lockdown party amid calls for resignation

UPDATES WITH SCOTTISH CONSERVATIVE LEADER’S CALL FOR PM TO RESIGN, EDITS THROUGHOUT

By Ahmet Gurhan Kartal and Karim El-Bar

LONDON (AA) – Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross called on British Prime Minister and UK Conservative Party leader Boris Johnson to resign on Wednesday, after Johnson apologized for a Downing Street party during the first COVID-19 lockdown in England.

Speaking to STV News, Ross said: “I said yesterday if the Prime Minister attended this gathering, party, event, in Downing Street, on May 20, then he could not continue as prime minister.”

“So, regretfully, I have to say that his position is no longer tenable.”

Johnson offered his “heartfelt apologies” in parliament earlier in the day for attending a garden party at Downing Street during the first coronavirus lockdown.

“I want to apologize,” Johnson said in a short statement during the weekly Prime Minister’s Questions session in the House of Commons.

Johnson said he knows the rage of people who made “extraordinary sacrifices for over the last 18 months… when they think that in Downing Street itself, the rules are not being properly followed by the people who make the rules.”

He added: “And though I cannot anticipate the conclusions of the current inquiry, I have learned enough to know that there were things we simply did not get right.

*“And I must take responsibility.”

Johnson then explained what happened at the Downing Street party that took place on March, 20, 2020, which in turn is only one of several parties alleged to have been held there.

He said No 10 was a big department, and that the garden was an extension of the office. The garden was in constant use as it was a source of fresh air to help stop the virus.

Johnson said he entered the garden just after 6 p.m. that day to thank the staff for their hard work, and went back into his office 25 minutes later to continue work.

“I believed implicitly that this was a work event,” he said in his apology, before adding that on hindsight he should have sent everyone back inside because while the event “could be said technically to fall within the guidance” there would be “millions and millions” of people who would not see it that way.

Johnson added: “People who suffered terribly, people who are forbidden from meeting loved ones at all, inside or outside, and to them and to this House I offer my heartfelt apologies.”

He concluded by calling on MPs to wait for the independent inquiry he commissioned into the Downing Street parties to be completed so that “the full facts can be established.”

- Resignation calls

The apology was not good enough for Sir Keir Starmer, the leader of the main opposition Labour party, who called on Johnson to resign.

Starmer said: “There we have it. After months of deceit and deception, the pathetic spectacle of a man who has run out of road. His defense ... that he didn’t realize he was at a party is so ridiculous that it’s actually offensive to the British public.

“He’s finally been forced to admit what everyone knew, that when the whole country was locked down he was hosting boozing parties in Downing Street,” he said.

“Is he now going to do the decent thing and resign?”

When Johnson refused, Starmer insisted: “The party’s over, prime minister.”

“Will the public kick him out, will his party kick him out or will he resign?”

Johnson said he understood his counterpart was “paid to try and remove me from office,” but added: “May I humbly suggest that he waits for the results of the inquiry? I apologize for all the misjudgements that have been made, for which I take full responsibility.”

Ian Blackford, the Scottish National Party’s Westminster leader, also called on Johnson to resign, saying: “Trust has been lost and the public will not forgive or forget.”

“The prime minister can’t get away with it again. Will the prime minister finally do the decent thing and resign or will his Tory MPs be forced to show him the door?”

Meanwhile, a study released on Tuesday by market research company Savanta ComRes, found that 66% of Brits think that Johnson should resign, including 42% of those who voted for his Conservative Party at the 2019 election.