A bereaved mum whose daughter died with just her parents by her side has called for Boris Johnson to quit over the Partygate scandal.
Amanda McEgan said the Prime Minister "crafted a culture of mistrust" in the Government, after he was fined for attending a lockdown party. Ms McEgan's daughter Isabel was "isolated" in her final weeks as she fought a rare form of cancer.
Isabel died aged 19 with just her mum and dad at her side on May 10 - weeks before the Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak attended a birthday party for Mr Johnson at the Cabinet Office in June 2020.
READ MORE: Mum 'disgusted' after teen daughter died 'isolated' from family
Isabel, a philosophy student at the University of Liverpool, was diagnosed with an incurable cancer called Papillary Renal Cell Carcinoma after a tumour was found in her mouth. Isabel didn't see anyone for her final eight weeks and died at home with just her mum and dad by her side.
When the ECHO spoke with Ms McEgan in January she said her daughter Isabel had "values and morals far beyond our own government who just disregard the rules they expect us to live by". She added the Government had showed an "appalling lack of regard for what other people were going through".
Despite Isabel being isolated in her final weeks Ms McEgan said their family wouldn't have done anything differently as they did "the right thing". She said Isabel, a Girl Guide who had completed her gold Duke of Edinburgh, had "moral integrity unlike this government".
Mr Johnson, his wife Carrie Johnson, and Mr Sunak have all paid their fine for being at the same event and the Prime Minister issued a public apology. But Mr Johnson refused to resign over the incident as he felt an "even greater sense of obligation to deliver on the priorities of the British people".
Ms McEgan, from Prescot, told the ECHO : "In my opinion he needs to go. I think whoever voted for him believing he was honest and trustworthy should be able to see now he's quite the opposite.
"A Prime Minister should lead with integrity and morality but he's shown none. Now we've heard he might have attended more parties and could be fined for those as well. What's he going to do - just apologise every single time?
"They set the rules for the general public but then make up their own. It's undemocratic and we need to hold these politicians to a higher standard."
Ms McEgan said she's been stunned by the amount of Conservative MPs who have jumped to the defence of Mr Johnson. As a teacher she was particularly stung by the comments of Michael Fabricant, MP for Lichfield in Staffordshire.
Mr Fabricant defended Mr Johnson attending the party as it was "just like many teachers and nurses who after a very long shift would tend to go back to the staff room and have a quiet drink". Mr Fabricant's comments were slammed by the National Association of Head Teachers as "wholly inaccurate and deeply insulting”.
Ms McEgan told the ECHO: "Teachers and nurses have been on their knees. In our school the staff room wasn't even open as we just stayed in our classroom with our children as a bubble.
"There would be weeks where I wouldn't see certain colleagues. We follow the guidelines set out to us to protect everyone else. To shift the blame and try and point the finger at others is what you expect children to do.
"Through the pandemic we've held ourselves in much higher moral authority than any of the Government so to try and pull us down to defend Mr Johnson's actions is just horrible."
