UK junior minister resigns
Douglas Ross, a junior minister in the UK’s Scotland office, resigned yesterday, saying the prime minister’s senior adviser’s explanation of why he travelled during the coronavirus lockdown was based on decisions others felt were not available to them.
Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s closest adviser, refused to resign on Monday, saying he had done nothing wrong by driving more than 400km to northern England when the UK was under a strict lockdown to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
Johnson, who worked with Cummings on the campaign to leave the EU, has stood by his adviser, saying the aide had followed the instincts of every father when he travelled with his wife for help with childcare.
Ross, a junior minister, said in a letter he accepted Cummings’ statement when he “clarified the actions he took in what he felt were the best interests of his family. However, these were decisions many others felt were not available to them”.
“I have constituents who didn’t get to say goodbye to loved ones, families who could not mourn together, people who didn’t visit sick relatives because they followed the guidance of the government.
“I cannot in good faith tell them they were all wrong and one senior adviser to the government was right.”
Cummings’ decision to travel during the lockdown has prompted fury in Britain, and several MPs from the governing Conservative Party criticised the aide after receiving angry messages from voters.
The Brexit campaign strategist said he had acted “reasonably and legally” when he drove across the country with his wife while she was suffering from the virus early last month.
“I don’t regret what I did,” he said.
Cummings did not apologise but did express regret for not asking Johnson — himself already treated in hospital for Covid-19 — for permission to travel during the lockdown’s most restrictive phase.
The scandal raging around his decision to drive to his parents’ house while he and his wife were sick threatens to undermine Johnson in the heat of a health emergency that has claimed nearly 37,000 lives.