Boris Johnnson has denied mocking the public for obeying lockdown rules “like a religion” in his new memoir, which saw him question why people “so avidly craved” restrictions.
Speaking to Sky News, Mr Johnson said he “totally rejects” the claim he was expressing disdain for members of the public who followed the rules during the Covid-19 pandemic.
In a chapter of his book about fighting the second wave of the pandemic, the former prime minister pointed out the “sheer complexity” of the tier system, which saw different parts of the UK placed under varying levels of restriction.
Mr Johnson said: “The real question is why on earth the public so avidly craved these rules and why they were so willing to have their doings circumscribed in such rabbinical detail.”
He added that the rules acted “like a kind of religion, detailed rituals you just obeyed, Leviticus like in the hope of salvation”.
Asked whether he was mocking people who closely followed the rules, Mr Johnson said: “I totally reject that.
“If you look at the way people historically have responded to pandemics… people want government to come in and lay down the law.”
He said he was making a point that goes to the “heart of one of the difficulties” of trying to understand the success of lockdowns, claiming that while a “large, honourable” group of people thought the rules went too far, “most people wanted regulation and they wanted to be told what to do in quite some detail”.
His new memoir, Unleashed, also saw him say he made a “mistake” in issuing “pathetic” and “grovelling” apologies over the partygate scandal.
Mr Johnson claimed his apology “made it look as though we were far more culpable than we were”.
A damning report by a cross-party group of MPs published last year found the ex-prime minister deliberately misled parliament over Partygate.
The verdict saw the Commons privileges committee say they would have recommended a 90-day suspension had Mr Johnson not already quit as an MP. The committee went on to recommend the former PM be stripped of his Commons pass.
Speaking to Sky, the former prime minister said he was “of course” sorry to people who were upset by the scandal.
He said he was trying to “explain that I made many mistakes in the handling of that story” and that by issuing a “big blanket apology” it seeemed “as though I was accepting every single allegation that was subsequently made”.
“I wasn’t, I didn’t mean to do that,” Mr Johnson added.
“Anybody who thinks that people in Number 10 were setting out to break the rules and have parties, I think is really out of their minds.”