By Tony O’Reilly-
A Conservative peer has resigned as a justice minister over the official response to the Covid law-breaking in Downing Street that saw prime minister, Boris Johnson, Rushi Sunak, and Carrie Johnson fined £50 each.
In a letter to Mr Johnson, Lord David Wolfson criticized the “official response” to “repeated rule-breaking”. Johnson and Chancellor Sunak were fined for attending a party in No 10 during lockdown, and there are fears that mote fines are to come for further breaches of lockdown rules.
Barrister Lord Wolfson has been a justice minister since December 2020, with responsibility for human rights and the constitution.
Mr Johnson said he was “sorry to receive” Lord Wolfson’s resignation and praised his contribution to reforms of the legal system.
Justice Secretary Dominic Raab described Lord Wolfson as a “world-class lawyer” and said he would be “sorely missed” in government. In his resignation letter, Lord Wolfson said the “scale, context and nature” of Covid breaches in government was inconsistent with the rule of law.
He added that he had “no option” other than to resign, given his “ministerial and professional obligations” in this area.
“It is not just a question of what happened in Downing Street, or your own conduct,” he wrote to the PM. “It is also, and perhaps more so, the official response to what took place.” Barrister Wolfson did not address the particular official response in question, as it was quite detailed in its form.
There have been calls for Mr Johnson and Mr Sunak to quit after being fined for attending the event in June 2020, but the pair have insisted on continuing their work to deliver the mandate of the British people.
The fine meant Mr Johnson became the UK’s first serving prime minister to be sanctioned for an offence under criminal law.
In a tweet, Labour’s shadow justice secretary Steve Reed praised Lord Wolfson “for taking a principled stand”.
Steve Reed Image: swlondoner.co.uk
He asked what this meant for Justice Secretary Dominic Raab, “who’s constitutionally charged with upholding the law but is instead condoning law-breaking”.
Ruth Davidson, the former Scottish Tory leader, also intensified her calls for Boris Johnson to quit over the Partygate scandal as she accused him of “traducing” the office of prime minister. The Tory peer said the prime minister had “made a mockery” of the British public’s sacrifices during the pandemic, opening up a split with Douglas Ross, her close ally and successor as Scottish Conservative leader.
Ruth Davidson Image:Holyrod.com
Calder Valley MP Craig Whittaker called for the prime minister and chancellor to “do the right thing and resign” during a Facebook Q&A with his constituents, saying “you can’t set the law of the lands and then break them as they have”.
He said he would not be putting in a letter to the chairman of the 1922 Committee of backbench Tory MPs, which would trigger a leadership vote once 54 letters are reached, adding that he wanted the government to focus on issues such as the war in Ukraine and cost of living crisis.
However, some Mps have argued that the war in Ukraine is not sufficient reason for the prime minister to stay in power. Some have made reference to the coming elections in France which could easily see a new leader take power. The estimated duration of the war in Ukraine which many observers believe could take years has been highlighted as one of the reasons it shouldn’t matter whether there is a change in government leadership in the Uk.