Tory MSP calls on Prime Minister to quit

A Tory MSP has broken party ranks and called on Boris Johnson to resign.

Brian Whittle says the Prime Minister should walk for his role in Downing Street’s lockdown ‘Partygate’.

Johnson was among a raft of top figures issues with fixed penalty fines by the Met Police last week.

He, along with Chancellor Rishi Sunak, has been forced into apologising - but both have refused to stand down.

A string of MPs and MSPs have since called for both men to fall on their swords, and now one Tory north of the border has backed that view.

Mr Whittle, the MSP for the South of Scotland, said: “Vladimir Putin’s brutal assault on Ukraine has rightly been the focus of the UK Government in recent weeks. “However, the seriousness of the actions Boris Johnson and others in Downing Street during lockdown hasn’t diminished. “When news of the lockdown parties first emerged, I said that the Prime Minister should hold himself accountable and resign. My view on that hasn’t changed. “Here in Scotland Boris Johnson’s actions have made it far too easy for the SNP and the Greens to conceal behind a mask of outrage their own failures in government, from the crisis in the NHS to the hundreds of millions wasted on botched ferry deals.

“Leadership without accountability is no leadership at all.

“Boris Johnson should step down and allow a leadership election to take place by the end of the summer so we can put this issue to rest and move on.”

It follows the call from former Scottish Tory leader, Ruth Davidson, that Johnson should resign.

But both Davidson and Whittle are odds with Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross who had called for Johnson to quit earlier this year but he performed a U-turn and is now calling on the PM to stay.