Lord Geidt on brink of quitting over PM’S flat
Adviser considering position after claims Johnson misled him over refurbishment
BORIS JOHNSON’S standards adviser was on the verge of quitting last night following accusations the Prime Minister misled him over the refurbishment of his Downing Street flat.
The Daily Telegraph understands that Lord Geidt will consider his position if Mr Johnson does not satisfactorily explain why he did not share vital evidence with him when he investigated the affair earlier this year.
Yesterday, the Electoral Commission fined the Conservative Party £17,800 for breaking rules on reporting donations after its own investigation – which included the “missing” evidence – found Mr Johnson had asked a Tory donor to fund the makeover.
The potential resignation of Lord Geidt would put Mr Johnson’s leadership under even greater pressure.
The latest blow to Mr Johnson’s authority – on a day when he welcomed the birth of his child, a baby girl – means he is battling three separate controversies, over his flat, new Covid restrictions and Christmas parties held in No 10 last year. The Cabinet Secretary’s probe into the parties was broadened to include a total of three get-togethers that may have breached Covid rules.
Meanwhile, a Tory rebellion over Mr Johnson’s new Covid Plan B rules, announced on Wednesday, was gathering pace, with more than 30 backbenchers indicating they would rebel when the rules are put to a vote on Monday. Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour Party leader, used a Daily Telegraph interview to urge the rebels to move decisively and remove Mr Johnson from office.
A Survation poll ahead of next week’s North Shropshire by-election has Labour six points ahead of the Conservatives on Westminster voting intention with Labour gaining a point and the Tories dropping two in a week.
The latest crisis to engulf the Prime Minister involves the long-running controversy over refurbishments to his
Downing Street flat, after the Electoral Commission found Mr Johnson had asked Lord Brownlow, the Tory donor, to pay thousands of pounds for the work.
While the Commission fined the Conservative Party for breaking rules on reporting donations, it also unearthed evidence that appeared to undermine Mr Johnson’s previous assurances to Lord Geidt over the extent of his own involvement in the refurbishment plans.
The probe found that Mr Johnson sent Lord Brownlow a Whatsapp message on Nov 29 last year, “asking him to authorise further, at that stage unspecified, refurbishment works on the residence”. Lord Brownlow agreed to do this, and explained that a trust fund – which had been proposed to finance the works but ultimately never materialised – had “not yet been set up but that he knew where the funding was coming from”, the report said. The next day, Lord Brownlow told a senior party official he intended to “cover the further refurbishment costs personally”.
The exchange appears to call into question Mr Johnson’s assurances to Lord Geidt that he “knew nothing” of the payments until they were reported in the media in February this year.
This defence was in Lord Geidt’s own report, published in May, which exonerated Mr Johnson of any wrongdoing, albeit noting he had acted “unwisely”.
The Telegraph understands that Lord Geidt has asked the Prime Minister and Lord Brownlow to provide an explanation as soon as today as to why the Whatsapp messages were not divulged to him along with other evidence.
If Lord Geidt, a former private secretary to the Queen, does not receive what he regards to be a satisfactory explanation, The Telegraph understands he is likely to resign, as he would not be able to do his job if the bond of trust between him and Mr Johnson was broken.
Separately, speculation is mounting that Kathryn Stone, the Parliamentary
Commissioner for Standards, will now initiate her own investigation into Mr Johnson. While Ms Stone’s office has refused to comment, Labour have written to the Commissioner demanding she investigate, with parliamentary sources suggesting that a decision on whether to launch a new probe could be announced early next week.
Publishing the findings of its investigation, the Electoral Commission said the Conservatives had failed fully tp report a donation of £67,000 from Huntswood Associates Limited, a company controlled by Lord Brownlow.
While the Conservatives only reported £15,000, the commission said it should have disclosed the remaining £52,000 that was used to fund the renovation of the flat in No11 Downing Street. This amounted to breaches in the law around the reporting of donations, it concluded, and represented “serious failings” in the party’s “compliance systems.
It comes eight months after the probe was first launched.
The report found that, in total, Lord Brownlow paid £112,549 towards the renovation of the flat. It also disclosed that in October 2020, a junior member of Conservative Party staff asked about the £52,801 the party had not declared, to which they were told “don’t worry”.
Yesterday, Dominic Cummings, the former No10 chief aide, said the report showed that Mr Johnson had “lied” to Lord Geidt. He added that prior to his departure from No10 he had been “extremely blunt” with the Prime Minister that his “desire for secret donations to fund wallpaper” was “illegal and unethical”.
Angela Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader said: “The Prime Minister must now explain why he lied to the British public saying he didn’t know who was behind No 11 flat refurb – all the while he was Whatsapping the donor asking for more money. He’s not only broken the law but made a mockery of the standards we expect from our prime ministers.”
The Prime Minister’s spokesman denied he had lied and insisted he had “acted in accordance with the rules at all times” and has “made all necessary declarations”.
Downing Street’s defence amounted to Mr Johnson not knowing that Lord Brownlow was providing the money to the “blind trust” he was organising.