Johnson has been under pressure for several days to explain how he paid for the upgrade to the flat, with British news outlets reporting that the work cost around £200,000 ($280,000).
The saga was elevated last week when Dominic Cummings, Johnson’s former closest ally, leveled accusations of “unethical, foolish, (and) possibly illegal” behavior against his old boss, claiming he discussed plans to have Conservative Party donors pay for the refurbishments.
The opening of an investigation comes at a tense moment for the Prime Minister, whose party is preparing to contest local elections across the country next week.
Compared with the Executive Residence at the White House or the various presidential palaces dotted around the world’s capital cities, the British Prime Minister’s London living quarters are relatively humble.
Leaders would traditionally live in a flat above Number 10 Downing Street, but recent Prime Ministers have instead moved into the larger apartment next door, at Number 11 — above the offices of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Prime Ministers are given £30,000 ($41,000) of public money a year to renovate the apartment during their term, and it is not uncommon for them or their spouses to put their own stamp on the interior design.
Of course, British leaders are not confined to this small apartment all year. The far more spacious country house residence of Chequers sits in Buckinghamshire, a short drive from London, and that destination is often used to entertain foreign leaders or to provide the Prime Minister with an escape from Westminster.
Why are Johnson’s renovations controversial?
Johnson has been under pressure for weeks to explain how he paid for the renovations to his apartment, which British news outlets have reported cost around £200,000 ($280,000).
Those renovations were reportedly overseen by Johnson’s fiancée, Carrie Symonds. But Cummings, who left his role late last year after amassing a reputation as the driving force behind the Prime Minister’s Brexit policy and re-election, alleged in a blog post that Johnson planned to have Conservative Party donors pay for the upgrade.
“I told him I thought his plans to have donors secretly pay for the renovation were unethical, foolish, possibly illegal and almost certainly broke the rules on proper disclosure of political donations,” Cummings wrote in an explosive post on Friday.
“I refused to help him organise these payments. My knowledge about them is therefore limited,” Cummings also wrote.
In an interview with the BBC on Sunday, Johnson’s international trade secretary, Liz Truss, said the Prime Minister had paid for the renovations himself. But she did not say whether he had borrowed the money from a donor first.
A Number 10 spokesperson told CNN that the government has “transparently laid out the historic expenditure” and that “any costs of wider refurbishment … have been met by the Prime Minister personally.” But the government has also not clarified where the funds came from originally.
These outstanding questions have combined to spark a political storm over Number 10, with critics and opposition MPs increasing calls for clarity over how the apartment was revamped.
What is happening now?
The Electoral Commission, which oversees political spending and investigates breaches, said on Wednesday it would formally investigate.
They said in a statement that there “are reasonable grounds to suspect that an offence or offences may have occurred.
“We will therefore continue this work as a formal investigation to establish whether this is the case,” added the Commission, which had previously confirmed to CNN it was looking into whether there were grounds for an official inquiry.
The move follows calls from the opposition Labour Party, which had urged that Cummings’ claims be investigated by the Electoral Commission, also alleging that the ministerial code that governs senior politicians’ conduct may have been broken.
“The Ministerial Code clearly states ‘Ministers should be as open as possible with Parliament and the public’. This has not happened,” Labour MP Rachel Reeves said in a statement.
Reeves said that “real and perceived conflicts of interest must be avoided” and that “there needs to be a full investigation given the gravity of the new accusations” from Cummings.
Alleged breaches of the ministerial code are investigated by an independent adviser on ministerial interests or by the cabinet secretary, but the code is not legally binding.
Downing Street denied the code had been broken, telling CNN that ministers have “acted in accordance with the appropriate codes of conduct.”
Why is Johnson being accused of ‘sleaze’?
The latest accusations form just part of a series of allegations that have combined to raise questions over Johnson’s government and its links to donors and lobbyists.
Several British media outlets have suggested Cummings was the source of the leaks — something Cummings denied in the same blog post in which he leveled accusations about Johnson’s apartment.
The Prime Minister dismissed suggestions that there was anything “sleazy” about his texts with Dyson.
“Let me tell you, if you think that there’s anything remotely dodgy or rum or weird or sleazy about trying to secure more ventilators at a time of a national pandemic and doing everything in your power to do that, then I think you are out of your mind,” he told reporters on Friday, according to PA Media.
The dual sagas coincide with new allegations about Johnson’s past comments in government.
Local elections across the country next month will be the first concrete test of how far this series of allegations has resonated with Britain’s voters. Johnson is enjoying a comfortable lead in opinion polls, after a speedy coronavirus vaccine rollout and a stringent lockdown earlier this year combined to bring the UK’s Covid-19 situation under control.
