Boris Johnson’s hopes of putting an end to the Partygate affair with a public apology were dealt a blow today as the justice minister left the government to protest the prime minister’s failure to resign after being fined for violating Covid laws.
Lord Wolfson said that “repeated violations of the rules and violations of criminal law” on Downing Street could not be allowed to be treated with “constitutional impunity”.
Prominent commercial lawyer and QC – received a title by Mr Johnson in 2020 when he was appointed to the government – was the first minister to leave over the Partygate scandal, saying he would not comply with his obligation to the rule of law to remain in the administration of the Prime Minister.
Labor said his departure raised questions about the position of Justice Minister Dominique Raab, whose position as Lord Chancellor gives him a special responsibility to abide by the law.
Mr Johnson is also on the verge of additional fines, reportedly facing three more fixed sentences against other parties on Downing Street.
Police will punish the prime minister for attending the departure of his former communications director, Lee Kane, according to the Daily Telegraph.
The November 13 event is “considered the most serious violation of coronavirus regulations among the events attended by the prime minister,” an unnamed source close to the investigation told the newspaper.
Meanwhile, Tory benches have been outraged by the £ 50 fines imposed on Mr Johnson and Chancellor Rishi Sunak for attending an offensive blocking birthday party at number 10, as two lawmakers called on the prime minister to resign.
Amber Valley MP Nigel Mills said Mr Johnson’s position was “untenable” after he became the first acting Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to be found by police to have broken the law.
“I don’t think the prime minister can or should survive by breaking the rules he introduced,” Mr Mills said. “He’s fined, I don’t think his position is resilient.”
Voters are “justly angry” about the 12 parties and rallies in №10 and Whitehall, which are currently being investigated by police, he said. “When they followed the strictest rules, the people who created the rules did not have the dignity to follow them.”
Mr Mills said he would “soon” send a letter of no confidence in Mr Johnson’s leadership to the chairman of the 1922 Tory Commission, Sir Graham Brady, who had to call a vote if 54 MEPs requested it.
Halifax Courier, meanwhile, said Calder Valley MP Craig Whitaker had told voters in a Facebook session that Johnson and Sunak should leave.
“Throughout this process, it was not very clear that the prime minister had broken any rules until, of course, he was given a fixed notice of punishment this week,” Mr Whitaker said. “My expectation is that he and the chancellor must do the right thing and resign.
Mr Whitaker said he would not send a letter to Sir Graham. But former Minister Sir Gary Streetter, who has already called for a vote of confidence, told The Independent that his position was “unchanged” following Mr Johnson’s apology.
And another former minister, Caroline Knox, said in a letter to a voter: “I was already very clear that I believe that the behavior of the prime minister is far from what my constituents have every right to expect. I do not need to write a letter of no confidence to the chairman of the 1922 Committee, mine was a long time ago.
In a letter to a voter sent by North Wiltshire MP James Gray in January and seen by The Independent, the veteran backbanker said that if the allegations against Mr Johnson and senior colleagues were proven, “our support for them will no doubt disappear”.
Today, he declined to say whether he supported the message, saying only that he had “no comment at all”.
The noise of discontent in the ranks of the Tories was reflected in a deeply critical editorial in The Spectator magazine, often seen as a bible for the party’s loyalists and previously edited by the prime minister.
The article warns that Mr Johnson cannot survive as prime minister simply by appealing to his position as a “military leader” during Ukraine’s crisis, as several cabinet ministers suggested in support statements Tuesday. Mr Sunak’s resignation would be fatal to his position and he cannot simply “reject” his calls to leave because of Partygate.
Instead, it is said that his future depends on his ability to cope with the cost of living crisis facing the country.
And in a scathing judgment, he said: “So far he seems to have few ideas. This is the real threat to his position: that he has a huge majority but no idea what to do with it and that whatever action he takes pushes Britain into a future with high taxes, debt and high costs, which many people voted for. avoid.
“If he is forced to leave, it will be for that reason. “
In a letter announcing his resignation, Lord Wolfson said he had concluded that the “scale, context and nature” of the 10 block violations meant that it would be incompatible with the rule of law to bring this behavior into line. with the constitution impunity, especially when many in society followed the rules at great personal cost, and others were fined or prosecuted for similar and sometimes apparently more trivial crimes. ‘
But he added that the official response to police findings – in which both Mr Johnson and Chancellor Rishi Sunak apologized yesterday but opposed calls for his resignation – forced him to leave the government.
“It’s not just about what happened on Downing Street or your own behavior,” said the Tory peer. “This is also, and perhaps more, the official response to what happened.”
He added: “I have concluded that, in accordance with both my ministerial and professional obligations to uphold and uphold the rule of law, I have no choice but to resign.”
Although his ministerial rank is younger, the resignation of such a high-ranking commercial idiot added to the notion that the prime minister’s determination to cling to power is seen as constitutionally wrong among the highest echelons of the legal system.
He told Johnson: “Justice can often be a matter of courts and proceedings, but the rule of law is something else – a constitutional principle that basically means that everyone in a country, and in fact the state itself, obeys the law. , ”
Labor Justice Minister Shadow Reed said Lord Wolfson’s resignation raised questions about Mr Raab’s position.
“Congratulations to the Minister of Justice, Lord Wolfson, for taking a principled stand,” Mr Reed said. “But what does this mean for Lord Chancellor Dominic Raab, who is constitutionally accused of obeying the law but instead approving of breaking the law?”
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