By Mark Landler and Tess Felder
LONDON — Britain’s minister for children and families resigned on Wednesday morning, becoming the latest in a growing exodus of officials from the scandal-engulfed government of Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Only two days earlier, the minister, Will Quince, had stoutly defended Mr. Johnson’s role in the promotion of a Conservative lawmaker accused of sexual misconduct and excessive drinking.
“With great sadness and regret, I have this morning tendered my resignation to the Prime Minister after I accepted and repeated assurances on Monday to the media which have now been found to be inaccurate,” Mr. Quince said on Twitter.
Mr. Quince’s case laid bare one of Mr. Johnson’s vulnerabilities in this season of scandal: Not only has the prime minister been accused of dissembling and issuing false statements, but Downing Street has also sent out representatives to television news studios to repeat those erroneous claims on behalf of Mr. Johnson
In his statement, Mr. Quince said Downing Street had given him a “categorical assurance” that Mr. Johnson had not been aware of any “specific” allegation against the Conservative lawmaker, Chris Pincher, before appointing him to the post of the party’s deputy chief whip this year. Downing Street later admitted that was not true.
Robin Walker, the minister of state for school standards, also stepped down on Wednesday, citing Mr. Johnson’s increasingly tumultuous tenure, including the resignation of Rishi Sunak as chancellor of the Exchequer and Sajid Javid as health secretary.
“Unfortunately,” Mr. Walker wrote in a letter that he then posted on Twitter, “recent events have made it clear to me that our great party, for which I have campaigned all of my adult life, has become distracted from its core missions by a relentless focus on questions over leadership.”
Mr. Walker added that the loss of Mr. Sunak and Mr. Javid — whom he described as “two of our broadest talents” — reflected “a worrying narrowing of the broad church that I believe any Conservative government should seek to achieve.”
Addressing Mr. Johnson in the letter, Mr. Walker wrote: “You won the confidence of your colleagues just a few weeks ago, but the events and revelations since have undermined this. I have publicly supported you as leader of our party and prime minister, but I am afraid I feel I can do so no longer.
Mark Landler is the London bureau chief. In 27 years at The Times, he has been bureau chief in Hong Kong and Frankfurt, White House correspondent, diplomatic correspondent, European economic correspondent, and a business reporter in New York. @MarkLandler
Basit Mahmood Today
LEFT FOOT FORWARD
'It's over'
The prime minister is on the brink, with his premiership entering its most dangerous moment, after the resignations of both his health secretary and chancellor, amid a new bid to oust him from office.
Sajid Javid and Rishi Sunak resigned within minutes of each other just as Johnson was forced to give a humiliating apology over his handling of the row over former deputy chief whip Chris Pincher.
In both their letters, Sunak and Javid gave a scathing assessment of Johnson’s premiership. Javid wrote: “I am instinctively a team player but the British people also rightly expect integrity from their Government. The tone you set as a leader, and the values you represent, reflect on your colleagues, your party and ultimately the country.
“Conservatives at their best are seen as hard-headed decision-makers, guided by strong values. We may not have always been popular, but we have been competent in acting in the national interest.
“Sadly, in the current circumstances, the public are concluding that we are now neither. The vote of confidence last month showed that a large number of our colleagues agree.
“I regret to say, however, that it is clear to me that this situation will not change under your leadership – and you have therefore lost my confidence too.”
Sunak wrote that the “public rightly expect government to be conducted properly, competently and seriously”, adding that “our approaches are fundamentally too different”.
He said: “I firmly believe the public are ready to hear that truth. Our people know that if something is too good to be true then it’s not true. They need to know that whilst there is a path to a better future, it is not an easy one…
“I am sad to be leaving Government but I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that we cannot continue like this.”
Their resignations came after Johnson admitted that he should not have appointed Chris Pincher as deputy chief whip in February after it was reported that the MP groped two men last week.
Johnson knew about sexual misconduct allegations against Pincher but made him deputy chief whip anyway. Downing Street initially insisted that the prime minister was unware of any specific allegations against Pincher. However, an explosive letter from former Foreign Office permanent secretary Lord McDonald accused Downing Street of making “inaccurate claims”, saying they “keep changing their story and are still not telling the truth”.
After repeated denials, a Number 10 spokesman then said Johnson was briefed about complaints against Pincher in 2019 but that he had forgotten that he was briefed about the incident.
The handling of the Pincher scandal and Johnson’s failure once more to tell the truth led not only to Sunak and Javid resigning but also several junior ministers quitting their posts.
Bim Afolami resigned as vice chair of the Conservative party while ministerial aides Jonathan Gullis, Saqib Bhatti, Nicola Richards and Virginia Crosbie also resigned.
Johnson moved swiftly to replace Javid and Sunak, with Steve Barclay being appointed health secretary and Nadhim Zahawi becoming the next chancellor.
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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Johnson fights for survival as two more MPs join flurry of resignations
(Adds pound sliding to lowest levels since 2020 in graph 9)
London, Jul 6 (EFE).- A further two members of Boris Johnson’s conservative government stepped down on Wednesday after a flurry of resignations, including two senior ministers who withdrew their support for the United Kingdom’s prime minister who is now fighting for survival.
On Wednesday children’s minister, Will Quince, and parliamentary private secretary to the department of transport, MP Laura Trott, handed in their resignations after the shock resignations of chancellor Rishi Sunak and health chief Sajid Javid on Tuesday.
In his letter of resignation to the prime minister, Quince said that he was leaving with “great sadness and regret” after Johnson admitted that he had known that Chris Pincher had been investigated over allegations of inappropriate behavior towards men when appointing him as deputy chief whip earlier this year.
On Monday, Quince defended Johnson in interviews and, in his resignation letter, said he had received “inaccurate” information from Downing street for Monday’s media briefing.
MP Trott said Wednesday that “trust in politics is — and must always be — of the utmost importance, but sadly in recent months this has been lost.”
In addition to Sunak and Javid — who were key figures in Johnson’s team — Bim Afolami resigned as Tory party vice-chair, and Andrew Murrison stepped down as trade envoy to Morocco, in a further blow to the prime minister.
Two parliamentary private secretaries, Jonathan Gullis and Saqib Bhatti, also joined the Tuesday mass walkout.
Johnson is mired in the deepest crisis to strike his government since he won the 2019 general election with a landslide victory.
On Wednesday the pound slid to its weakest level since March 2020 as it traded below $1.19.
The Tory leader is set to face his peers at prime minister’s questions on Wednesday afternoon.
The PM is also expected to give evidence to the Liaison Committee, where he will be questioned over his policies by a select group of MPs.
The Conservative leader recently survived an internal no-confidence vote in which 41% of Tory lawmakers voted against the PM following a string of scandals involving his team ranging from pandemic lockdown breaches to sexual assault allegations.
According to media reports, conservative rebels are plotting to overturn the 1922 Committee — a committee of all backbench Conservative MPs — in order to call for a second no-confidence vote.
Under the committee’s current rules, Johnson would be exempt from a no-confidence vote for the next 2 months. EFE
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