PM’s anti-corruption tsar John Penrose resigns and calls for Johnson to quit
Boris Johnson’s anti-corruption tsar has quit his post and has called for the Prime Minister to step down over his handling of partygate.
Conservative MP John Penrose said Johnson broke the ministerial code over the Downing Street Covid parties scandal and that he will be voting against the PM in the no confidence vote this evening.
It was announced today by Sir Graham Brady, chair of the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers, that the threshold has been reached for a vote on Johnson’s leadership of the Conservative party.
Penrose said in a letter to the PM that “you have breached a fundamental principle of the ministerial code” in showing poor leadership during the Covid parties scandal.
The Sue Gray report into the saga laid the blame for Downing Street’s culture of rule breaking at the feet of the Prime Minister.
“It’s pretty clear he has broken the ministerial code in a very material way – at that point it’s normally a resignation matter for the minister concerned, but also clearly I as the anti-corruption tsar cannot carry on in that role,” he told Sky News.
Johnson apologised for the partygate scandal, but insisted he did not know the litany of lockdown-busting events were against his own Covid rules.
A steady trickle of Conservative MPs have come out against Johnson in the week and a half since the release of the Gray report, with rumours that up to 67 letters of no confidence were sent to Sir Graham Brady.