Former prime minister Boris Johnson has refused to say whether he regrets apologising to the Queen for a party in Downing Street on the eve of Prince Philip’s funeral.
The ex-Tory leader did say he should not have apologised for the Partygate scandal, in an interview with ITV.
But he would not be drawn on his conversations with the former monarch.
The four candidates in the current Tory leadership contest were urged to condemn his remarks, as he was accused of insulting “everyone who lost family members” during the Covid pandemic.
In his newly memoir, Unleashed, Mr Johnson said he made a “mistake” issuing “pathetic” and “grovelling” apologies over the scandal which, he said, “made it look as though we were far more culpable than we were”.
Last year a damning report by a cross-party group of MPs found he deliberately lied and lied again to parliament over Partygate.
In a sensational verdict, the Commons privileges committee said they would have recommended a 90-day suspension had he not already quit as an MP. But they did call for the former PM to still suffer the humiliation of being stripped of his Commons pass.
In an interview with ITV News, his first major TV sit down since leaving office, he said he regretted apologising for the scandal, over lockdown-era gatherings in Downing Street.
He claimed the move had “inadvertently validated the entire corpus” as accusations were also levelled at officials who were “working very hard”.
He added: “What I was trying to say there was, I think that the blanket apology – the sort of apology I issued right at the beginning – I think the trouble with it was that afterwards, all the accusations that then rained down on officials who’d been working very hard in Number 10 and elsewhere were thought to be true.
“And by apologising I had sort of inadvertently validated the entire corpus and it wasn’t fair on those people.”But he refused to say whether he regrets apologising to the Queen.
Asked directly “did you regret apologising to the Queen?”, he replied: “I don’t discuss my conversations with the Queen.”
Mr Johnson also criticised David Cameron’s handling of the aftermath of the Brexit vote, suggesting it was “not normal”for the former prime minister to “evacuate the stage” after the referendum. Mr Johnson and Michael Gove, who were part of the Vote Leave campaign, have been accused of unleashing chaos on the UK for campaigning for Brexit without a clear plan for what it would mean.
But Mr Johnson tried to turn the blame on Lord Cameron. He said: “What we expected and what I think, you know, everybody expected was that the Cameron government having called a referendum a ‘yes’, ‘no’ choice for the people – a leave, remain choice for the people – would bring forward a white paper.”
He said he was shocked when Lord Cameron left Number 10 the morning after the vote. He said: “Because every other European leader when their whole referendum decides, you know, once the people have voted, decides what to do and stays in office.
“So, it’s not normal for the prime minister having asked for a referendum vote suddenly to evacuate the stage.”
In response to the privileges committee, Mr Johnson called their conclusions “deranged” and “the final knife-thrust in a protracted political assassination”.
Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper said: “Yet again Boris Johnson has shown a complete lack of remorse.“
“His comments are an insult to everyone who lost family members during the pandemic and for those who sacrificed so much. It shows he was never fit to be Prime Minister.
“The Conservative Leadership candidates must condemn these remarks and apologise on behalf of the Government they were part of that failed this country so badly during the pandemic.”