Here’s a roundup of key developments from the day:
- Boris Johnson’s deputy has insisted the prime minister did not breach the ministerial code even though he was fined by police for attending a No 10 party in lockdown, as the government’s ethics chief reportedly threatened to quit over the scandal. Dominic Raab, the deputy prime minister and justice secretary, said on Wednesday that Johnson had only “unintentionally” and “inadvertently” broken the law.
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The prime minister faces fresh criticism of his conduct over Partygate as the committee on standards in public life issues a statement raising questions about his commitment to uphholding the ministerial code. Members of the independent watchdog are understood to have been particularly irked by Johnson’s decision, announced last week, not to give his independent ethics adviser, Lord Geidt, the power to launch his own inquiries in future.
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Boris Johnson was “very surprised and taken aback” to get a fine for attending an event during lockdown. He told Mumsnet: “I was there for a very short period of time in the Cabinet Office, at my desk, and I was very very surprised and taken aback to get a fixed-penalty notice.”
- Simon Fell, the MP for Barrow, has become the latest MP to publicly question the prime minister’s position, saying an apology was “insufficient” after the damning details in Sue Gray’s Partygate report. Fell, who was elected to the “red wall’ seat in 2019 and was part of the “pork pie plot” of MPs who met to discuss their loss of faith in Johnson earlier in the year, stopped short of saying he had written a letter of no confidence in the PM.
- Tory MPs including a junior minister are holding back from submitting letters of no confidence in Boris Johnson over fears their names will leak and they will face reprisals from the whips. Rebel Conservatives trying to orchestrate enough names to oust the prime minister say many MPs, particularly newer ones, are concerned about the privacy of the process.
- Efforts to topple Boris Johnson are being co-ordinated by “one or two individuals” for reasons of “personal ambition”, Nadine Dorries has said. The culture secretary told BBC Radio 4’s World at One programme “the overwhelming number of Conservative MPs are fully behind” the prime minister and “absolutely back him”.
- Boris Johnson’s unpopularity in Scotland is at a record high, according to a new poll for STV News. Ipsos Mori has found he has a popularity rating amongst Scottish voters of -71, with a large majority fearing they will be worse off if remains prime minister after the next election.
- The shadow levelling up, housing and communities secretary, Lisa Nandy, has said “any government worth its salt would be moving heaven and earth to stop the misery and the chaos” unfolding at airports. She said: The government was warned all the way through the pandemic that the loss of skilled staff was going to create problems.”
- Charities that support asylum seekers say they are documenting a number of suicide attempts among those threatened with being sent to Rwanda. Cases include a female Iranian asylum seeker who attempted suicide and told charity workers she took this action because she believed she faced being offshored to Rwanda.
Thanks so much for joining me today. I’ll be back again tomorrow.
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Watchdog questions PM’s commitment to public standards
Boris Johnson faces fresh criticism of his conduct over Partygate as the committee on standards in public life issues a statement raising questions about his commitment to uphholding the ministerial code.
Members of the independent watchdog are understood to have been particularly irked by Johnson’s decision, announced last week, not to give his independent ethics adviser, Lord Geidt, the power to launch his own inquiries in future.
That was one of nine recommendations made by the committee earlier this year, of which Johnson has implemented only two – one of which was to allow ministers to escape resignation for minor infractions.
A source close to the committee said members were angered by what they saw as “cherrypicking” – and that its chair, Jonathan Evans, a former director general of MI5, was expected to express those concerns publicly.
Even before Partygate, Johnson’s government had been accused of undermining standards in public life, including by overruling the finding of Geidt’s predecessor, Alex Allan, that the home secretary, Priti Patel, had bullied staff, albeit inadvertently. Allan resigned in protest.
Geidt used his annual report, published on Tuesday, to pose what he called the “legitimate question” of whether Johnson had broken the ministerial code, in receiving a fixed-penalty notice for breaching lockdown rules. The code includes an “overarching duty” to comply with the law.
Geidt reportedly considered resigning over the fact that until Tuesday evening, Johnson had failed to make any statement setting out why he believed he had not broken the code. However, it is understood he now has no intention of stepping down.
The prime minister, who is the ultimate arbiter of the ministerial code, then published a letter in which he exonerated himself on several grounds, including the fact that he had apologised, and did not believe he was breaking the rules at the time.
He also stated that he believed the principles of good conduct in public life, which include selflessness and integrity, remained “the bedrock of standards in our country and in this administration”.
Johnson still faces an investigation by the House of Commons privileges committee over whether he lied to MPs, when repeatedly asserting that “all guidance was followed” in Downing Street.
Read more from my colleagues Rajeev Syal and Heather Stewart here:
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