JAVID AND SUNAK: WE HAD TO QUIT
Ministers claim Johnson ‘lacked standards’ in letters
BORIS JOHNSON’S future as prime minister was in question on Tuesday (5)after the dramatic resignation of chancellor Rishi Sunak and health secretary Sajid Javid over his failure to apologise for the latest scandal to dog his administration.
Sunak and Javid both said they could no longer tolerate the culture of scandal that has stalked Johnson for months.
The resignations were announced minutes after the prime minister apologised for his ‘mistake’ in appointing a senior Tory politician, who quit last week after he was accused of drunkenly groping two men.
Days of shifting explanations had followed the resignation of the party’s deputy chief whip Chris Pincher. Downing Street initially denied Johnson knew of prior allegations against Pincher when appointing him in February.
However, on Tuesday (5), a former top civil servant said Johnson, as foreign secretary, was told in 2019 about another incident involving his ally.
“I think it was a mistake and I apologise for it,” the prime minister told reporters, after opposition MPs and some Tories accused him of lying over what he knew when he appointed Pincher. “In hindsight, it was the wrong thing to do.”
In his resignation letter, Sunak said “the public rightly expect government to be conducted properly, competently and seriously. I believe these standards are worth fighting for and that is why I am resigning.”
Javid, who preceded Sunak at the Treasury in 2020 before quitting over a prior bust-up with Johnson, said the British public “expect integrity from their government”.
The prime minister’s survival in last month’s no-confidence vote gave him the opportunity to show “humility, grip and new direction”, Javid wrote.
“I regret to say, however, it is clear to me that this situation will not change under your leadership – and you have therefore lost my confidence too.”
Johnson has been embroiled in various scandals, including the so-called ‘partygate’ affair, which saw him receive a police fine for breaking his own Covid lockdown rules in Downing Street.
The 58-year-old prime minister still faces a parliamentary probe into whether he lied to MPs over the lockdown-breaching parties.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said it was “clear that this government is now collapsing”.
“The Tory party is corrupted and changing one man won’t fix that,” he said in a statement, demanding a snap general election. “We need a change of government.”
However, Jacob Rees-Mogg MP dismissed Sunak and Javid’s resignations as “little local difficulties”.
“Losing chancellors is something that happens,” he told Sky News.
The resignations of Sunak and Javid – after a succession of crises that led to a vote of confidence in Johnson’s leadership – have done little to dampen speculation that both men still have an eye on the top job.
Sunak, 42, had been on a meteoric trajectory to power that could have made him Britain’s first Hindu prime minister.
Javid, 10 years Sunak’s senior and also with a past career in high finance, was his immediate predecessor, and a polished political performer.
Sunak became chancellor in February 2020, after only five years in Conservative politics following a lucrative private sector career.
A month later, Johnson ordered the first nationwide lockdown in response to Covid-19 infections, forcing Sunak to craft a massive financial rescue package to safeguard millions of jobs.
But since restrictions were lifted, the former chancellor has come under increasing pressure, as a cost-of-living crisis worsens, sending inflation to 40-year highs and leaving many Britons struggling to make ends meet.
Sunak also found himself on the back foot over his wife’s financial affairs, and criticism from fellow Tories about his moves to increase taxes for millions. Revelations that his wife Akshata Murty – whose billionaire father founded the Indian tech behemoth Infosys – did not pay UK tax caused a storm of protest.
In addition, Sunak found himself fined by police for briefly attending an impromptu birthday party for Johnson during Covid restrictions in 2020.
Javid, the son of a Pakistani immigrant bus driver who faced racism growing up in Bristol, has quit Johnson’s cabinet before.
His seven-month stint as chancellor was rocked by rumours of deep divisions with Johnson’s former chief political adviser Dominic Cummings.
He quit after Brexit architect Cummings tried to force him to fire all his top advisers and replace them with ones from Downing Street.
Javid’s refusal and resignation paused what had also been a skyrocketing political career, after he served as home secretary under former prime minister Theresa May.
He was appointed as health secretary in June 2021, when his predecessor Matt Hancock quit after being caught having an affair with an adviser, in breach of social distancing guidelines.