Rishi Sunak has defended his handling of the Nadhim Zahawi tax row as the prime minister said he followed the “right process”.
It comes as Zahawi is said to be “furious” about his sacking by the prime minister as Tory party chairman after an ethics probe found serious breaches of the ministerial code over his tax affairs.
The PM, speaking in County Durham, said: “What I have done is follow a process, which is the right process.
“Integrity is really important to me – all of you guys want to see that government is run properly, that it is run with integrity and there’s accountability when people don’t behave in the way that they should or if something doesn’t go right, and that’s what we’ve done.”
However, one Zahawi ally told The Times that Mr Sunak has “opened himself up to all sorts of problems in the future”.
“The Boris lot always accused Sunak of not having any loyalty. He’s proved the point. Good luck keeping ministers onside now.”
