U.K. government refuses to give Johnson's texts to COVID-19 inquiry
The British government refused Thursday to hand over former Prime Minister Boris Johnson's COVID-19-era text messages to a committee investigating the handling of the pandemic, setting off a legal battle that could become a political headache for the current prime minister, Rishi Sunak.
The government's cabinet office faced a deadline of 4 p.m. to turn over unredacted text messages, diaries and notebooks belonging to Johnson. But it dug in its heels, arguing that to do so would compromise private exchanges between senior officials and establish a worrisome precedent for future investigations.
Instead, the cabinet office asked a court to rule on whether it should be compelled to turn over all the communications, including material it said would be “unambiguously irrelevant” to an investigation of Britain's COVID-19 response.
“Individuals, junior officials, current and former ministers and departments should not be required to provide material that is irrelevant to the inquiry's work,” the government said in a letter to the COVID-19 inquiry. “It represents an unwarranted intrusion into other aspects of the work of government. It also represents an intrusion into their legitimate expectations of privacy and protection of their personal information.”
The chair of the inquiry, Baroness Heather Hallett, contends that it is the job of the committee, not the government, to determine what material is relevant to its investigation. She originally set a deadline of Tuesday before agreeing to postpone it by two days in hopes that the cabinet office would relent.
Historically, public inquiries in Britain have had broad scope to demand internal government communications. But this is the first inquiry in the era of WhatsApp, the texting app that British officials have avidly embraced for business and personal exchanges, all of which are forever preserved in cyberspace.
The government, analysts said, is worried that the disclosure of WhatsApp messages could embarrass current senior ministers, including Sunak. He served as chancellor of the Exchequer under Johnson during the pandemic, arguing forcefully in internal debates against prolonged lockdowns.
To some extent, the standoff is a proxy for deeper tensions between Sunak and Johnson.
Wednesday, Johnson said he had turned over a sheaf of text messages and other material to the cabinet office and he challenged it to hand over the package, unredacted, to the inquiry.
Thursday evening, he offered to hand over his WhatsApp messages to the inquiry directly, if asked.
The cabinet office said its lawyers worked through the night to vet the exchanges for national security concerns and to weed out “unambiguously irrelevant” material. It said it would forward material it deemed relevant. The inquiry has also demanded text messages from a former senior aide to Johnson, Henry Cook.
The government's response puts Sunak in an awkward spot, with critics already suggesting that it is engaged in a cover-up. The disclosure of embarrassing details could hurt his reputation and damage his Conservative Party before a general election that must be held by January 2025.
For Johnson, who is no longer in the government and whose unfiltered comments about COVID-19 and other matters are well documented, the political risks are lower. He has had icy relations with Sunak since last July, when Sunak's resignation from his cabinet set in motion a chain of events that brought down Johnson.
The former prime minister expressed fury last week when the cabinet office referred new claims to the police that Johnson had violated lockdown regulations by inviting friends to his country residence, Chequers.
Last year, Johnson and Sunak were both fined by the police for attending social gatherings at 10 Downing St. in 2020 and 2021 that violated social distancing regulations.