Conservative MPs are in denial over leadership of their party and are stuck in “Stockholm syndrome” with Boris Johnson, a senior backbencher has warned.
Boris Johnson is currently fending off increasing pressure to resign over the Sue Gray Partygate report, with 24 of his own MPs now publicly calling for him to step down from parliament.
Meanwhile, the Cabinet Office has appeared to reject claims that the report was tampered with prior to publication, with details of an alleged party at the PM’s Downing Street flat supposedly removed.
Senior members of Mr Johnson’s team are also alleged to have put pressure on the civil servant to remove certain details and names from her report into coronavirus rule-breaking, according to the Sunday Times, which quoted a source as saying that “the entire machine fought her” once she made clear an intention to publish emails and WhatsApp messages.
But the Cabinet Office insisted on Sunday that Ms Gray’s report “was impartially conducted and its contents represent the findings and conclusions of the investigation team alone”.