Johnson’s premiership ‘disastrous from start to finish’, says O’Neill

By Claudia Savage, PA

Sinn Féin vice president Michelle O’Neill has said Boris Johnson’s premiership was “disastrous from start to finish”, as MPs debated the findings of the Privileges Committee’s partygate report.

The committee found that Boris Johnson misled Parliament when he told the Commons that Covid rules had been obeyed despite parties taking place in No 10.

When asked if she would urge the DUP to vote in favour of the report, Ms O’Neill said “that’s for them to resolve”.

She added: “But I am very clear around Boris Johnson’s role, in the fact that he’s been disastrous from start to finish.”

The Sinn Féin Stormont leader has been a long-time critic of Mr Johnson.

On Monday, Ms O’Neill said the Conservative’s time in government had been “bad for everybody”.

“Well, I think the Tories have been bad for everybody throughout all of their tenure – look at the complete mess of previous prime ministers crashing the economy,” she said.

“Later this week, we’re going to hear more about mortgage hikes, interest rate hikes, that’s affecting people’s lives.”

Ms O’Neill said real people’s lives were being impacted by Conservative decision-making, while Tories themselves engaged in “battling and bravado”.

“This is why I think that we have to look towards the future and something better for us all and I think that’s going to be found in constitutional change,” she said.

Ms O’Neill was herself heavily criticised for her attendance at the funeral of republican Bobby Storey in Belfast in 2020 at a time when strict limits on such events were in place.

Prosecutors decided to take no action against a number of Sinn Féin politicians who attended the funeral during the pandemic.