The Press and Journal (Inverness, Highlands, and Islands)
Ex-PM submits his messages
Boris Johnson said yesterday he has sent “all unredacted WhatsApps” directly to the Covid-19 inquiry ahead of a legal clash between the probe and the Cabinet Office over access to the messages.
The ex-prime minister told inquiry chairwoman Baroness Hallett he would “like to do the same” with messages on an old mobile phone he stopped using due to security concerns.
The messages on the locked device refer to discussions from before May 2021 and are likely to relate to conversations about the three coronavirus lockdowns ordered in 2020.
It comes as ministers prepare for a legal battle with the inquiry as the government seeks to challenge the request for Mr Johnson’s unredacted WhatsApp messages and notebooks to be submitted.
Mr Johnson told Baroness Hallett in a letter sent yesterday: “I am sending your inquiry all unredacted WhatsApps I provided to the Cabinet Office.
“I would like to do the same with any material that may be on an old phone which I have previously been told I can no longer access safely.
“I propose to pass all such material directly to you.”
He also told the former senior judge he would ask for his unredacted notebooks back from the Cabinet Office and share them if the government refuses.
While prime minister in 2021, Mr Johnson was forced to change his mobile after it emerged his number had been publicly available online for 15 years.
Lady Hallett is currently in a legal row with ministers over the submission of Mr Johnson’s correspondence.
The Cabinet Office missed a deadline on Thursday to hand over his messages and notebooks without any omissions.
The department said it was bringing a judicial review challenge “with regret”.
It promised to “continue to co-operate fully with the inquiry before, during and after the jurisdictional issue in question is determined by the courts”.
That question will centre on whether Lady Hallett’s probe can force ministers to release documents and messages the Cabinet Office believes are “unambiguously irrelevant” and cover matters “unconnected to the government’s handling of Covid”.
Former No 10 chief of staff Lord Barwell, who served in Theresa May’s administration, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Some of the (WhatsApp) messages might be a bit embarrassing but, nonetheless, I think they’re making a bad mistake.
“If we can’t see how the government made the decisions it made, how it got to the point that it did, then people are not going to have confidence in the outcome of the inquiry.”
It comes after Science Minister George Freeman, in an appearance on the BBC’s Question Time programme, predicted that the legal challenge was likely to fail.
The Liberal Democrats have announced that they will table a motion in the Commons next week calling for “all material” requested by the national virus probe to be released.
The inquiry said it would not comment on Mr Johnson’s letter or the judicial review until Tuesday’s preliminary hearing.