UK Politics

Boris Johnson faces a potentially nightmarish session of Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons on Wednesday after a dramatic evening of resignations on Tuesday.Chancellor Rishi Sunak and health secretary Sajid Javid both stepped down saying they had lost confidence in Mr Johnson’s leadership after it emerged that he had not been honest about his decision-making in hiring Chris Pincher as deputy chief whip.The latter’s resignation from that role last Thursday after admitting to drunkenly groping two male colleagues at private member’s club in central London prompted a slew of allegations about his conduct, which appears to have been an open secret in Westminster.Mr Johnson’s belated admission that he had been briefed on the accusations against Mr Pincher, despite previously saying he had not known about the “specific” allegations against him – his hand apparently forced by an intervention from former senior civil servant Lord McDonald – was apparently too much for Mr Sunak and Mr Javid.Having been forced to defend the PM over a slew of scandals since last autumn, from Owen Paterson to Partygate and on, they tendered their resignations and were swiftly followed by no fewer than 13 others, including Tory party vice-chair Bim Afolami, children’s minister Will Quince, solicitor-general Alex Chalk, five junior ministers and two trade envoys.The PM moved quickly to appoint Nadim Zahawi and Steve Barclay as his new chancellor and health secretary respectively, as well as Michelle Donelan as his replacement education secretary to replace Mr Zahawi, but, despite the apparent support of the rest of his Cabinet, the damage looks mortal.Today’s PMQ’s kicks off at 12pm in the Commons and will be broadcast on BBC One and BBC Parliament and covered live on The Independent website via our liveblog.Expect Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and many others to call for Mr Johnson to finally step down and the PM to mount a spirited fightback.Fireworks assured. More

Tory MPs are demanding an immediate rule change to the party’s rulebook in order to force Boris Johnson from office after the devastating resignations of two cabinet ministers.As the prime minister fights for his political survival, former minister Chris Skidmore said he no longer had confidence in Mr Johnson and said it was vital the Conservatives’ 1922 committee “urgently reconsider the rules”.Simon Hoare, another senior Tory MP, said he had also written to the chair of the committee, Sir Graham Brady, requesting a rule change in order to ballot Tory MPs on whether they have confidence in Mr Johnson.Posting on social media, the Tory MP Mr Hoare said: “This will come as no surprise to those who know me but I have written to Graham Brady asking for a rule change governing the holding of a no confidence vote & a further confidence vote to be held.”“Changes is needed & needed now: for the sake of our country, my constituents & my party,” he added.Last night, a third MP, Anthony Browne, said Mr Johnson must be removed from office, describing the situation as “completely untenable”.“I fully support a change in the rules of the 1922 committee to enable another vote of no confidence.”After narrowly surviving a no confidence vote last month, Mr Johnson, under the current 1922 committee rules, is technically safe from another for a 12-month period, until June 2023.But the prime minister’s fate may ultimately lie with backbench MPs if the committee’s rules are changed to allow another vote. It is also expected that elections to the 1922 committee will take place next week, potentially increasing the chances of a rule change.In a letter to Sir Graham, former energy minister Mr Skidmore said the prime minister had “not been truthful to the media, to his own advisers and No 10 officials, and to the party in disclosing what he knew” over allegations against the former deputy chief whip Christopher Pincher.He added: “It is vital therefore that the 1922 must now urgently reconsider the rules that prevent a new vote of no confidence from taking place.“The prime minister has made it clear that he will not change. It is therefore time that we change the prime minister”. More

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government faced a new crisis Tuesday after two of his most senior Cabinet ministers resigned within minutes of each other. Treasury chief Rishi Sunak and Health Secretary Sajid Javid quit, saying the government under Johnson’s leadership was no longer competent or “acting in the national interest.” The apparently coordinated exits came after Johnson was hit by allegations he lied about how he handled claims of sexual misconduct by a lawmaker who was appointed to a senior position. Both Javid and Sunak are key members of the Cabinet and both are seen as potential successors to Johnson, leaving his position perilous. A look at who Sunak and Javid are: ___RISHI SUNAK, TREASURY CHIEFIn his resignation letter, Sunak told Johnson “it has become clear to me that our approaches are fundamentally too different.”“The public rightly expect government to be conducted properly, competently and seriously. I recognise this may be my last ministerial job, but I believe these standards are worth fighting for and that is why I am resigning,” he wrote. Sunak was, until recently, widely regarded as the party’s brightest rising star, the best-known of potential leadership contenders — and the bookies’ favorite to succeed Johnson.Sunak, 42, was thrust into the spotlight when he became treasury chief in 2020, tasked with the unenviable job of steering the economy through its worst economic slump on record because of the pandemic. He dished out billions of pounds in emergency spending to help businesses and workers, and his policies have generally been seen in a positive light.But “partygate” changed those fortunes. Like Johnson, he was issued a police fine for attending a lockdown-flouting birthday party at Downing Street in June 2020. He has also come under heavy criticism for being slow to respond to Britain’s severe cost-of-living crisis.Sunak also faced pressure following revelations that his wife, Akshata Murthy, avoided paying U.K. taxes on her overseas income, and that the former investment banker held on to his U.S. green card while serving in government.Born to Indian parents who moved to the U.K. from East Africa, Sunak attended the exclusive Winchester College private school and studied at Oxford.Some see his elite education and past work for the investment bank Goldman Sachs and a hedge fund as a deficit because he seems out of touch with ordinary voters.___SAJID JAVID, HEALTH SECRETARYIn his statement, Javid said he could “no longer, in good conscience, continue serving in this government.”Javid, 52, has been health secretary since June 2021, leading Britain’s COVID-19 response. Before that, he served as treasury chief, but resigned in early 2020 after clashing with Johnson over his order to fire his team of advisers.The fact that Johnson brought him back into the government to handle the coronavirus response reflects his reputation for competence.Javid, a father of four, was first elected in 2010 and has held various positions in government, including serving as home secretary and leading departments for business, culture and housing.He ran in the 2019 Conservative leadership election, but was eliminated in the fourth round and lost to Johnson.The son of Pakistani immigrants, Javid has billed himself as a common-man alternative to his private school-educated rivals — although he had a lucrative career in investment banking before entering politics. More

A minister who defended Boris Johnson just days ago over Christopher Pincher’s conduct after being given inaccurate “assurances” from No 10 has resigned from the government.In another blow to the embattled prime minister, Will Quince tendered his resignation after wrongly claiming the prime minister was not aware of “specific” allegations made against the former chief whip.In a statement on Wednesday, the education minister said: “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.“I wish my successor well – it is the best job in government.”Another minister at the Department for Education (DfE), Robin Walker, also announced they had quit on Wednesday, saying the government has been “overshadowed by mistakes and questions about integrity’’.Their decisions to quit comes as Mr Johnson faces a fight for his political survival after the devastating resginations of the chancellor Rishi Sunak, and the health secretary Sajid Javid.Speaking on Tuesday – moments before the high profile resignations – the prime minister apologised for appointing Mr Pincher deputy chief whip in February 2022, saying it was a “mistake”.It emerged earlier in the day Mr Johnson had been briefed on complaints relating to Mr Pincher in 2019 while he was serving as a minister at the Foreign Office – despite No 10’s previous insistence to the contrary.However, his official spokesman denied the prime minister had “lied” and rather insisted Mr Johnson did not immediately “recall” being told about the complaint when fresh allegations emerged last week.On Monday, Mr Quince, an education minister, defended the prime minister and told broadcasters he was given a “categorical assurance” that Mr Johnson was not “aware of specific claims”. More

Amid the political chaos of ministerial resignations on Tuesday evening, one Conservative MP had a very blunt response to the announcement of a new education secretary. In a very public example of apparent Tory division, backbencher Lucy Allan MP replied to the official UK prime minister Twitter account’s announcement of Michelle Donelan’s new role, simply writing: “Seriously”. Ms Allan appeared unhappy that Nadhim Zahawi had been moved to the Treasury to become the new chancellor, as Boris Johnson scrambled to replace Rishi Sunak. More

A defiant British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was battling to stay in power on Wednesday after his government was rocked by the resignation of two top ministers, who said they could no longer serve under his scandal-tarred leadership.His first challenge is getting through Wednesday, where he faces tough questions at the weekly Prime Minister’s Questions session in Parliament, and a long-scheduled grilling by a committee of senior lawmakers.Months of discontent over Johnson’s judgment and ethics within the governing Conservative Party erupted with the resignations of Treasury chief Rishi Sunak and Health Secretary Sajid Javid within minutes of each other on Tuesday evening. In a scathing resignation letter, Sunak said “the public rightly expect government to be conducted properly, competently and seriously. … I believe these standards are worth fighting for and that is why I am resigning.”Javid said the party needed “humility, grip and a new direction” but “it is clear this situation will not change under your leadership.”Johnson quickly replaced the two ministers, promoting Nadhim Zahawi from the education department to the Treasury and installing his chief of staff, Steve Barclay, as health secretary.But a string of resignations late Tuesday from more junior ministers — from both the liberal and right-wing branches of the Conservative Party — showed that danger to Johnson was far from over. In the past few months, Johnson has been fined by police and slammed by an investigator’s report over lockdown-breaching parties in government during the pandemic; survived a no-confidence vote by his party in which 41% of Conservative lawmakers voted to oust him; and has seen formerly loyal lieutenants urge him to resign.Through it all, he has vowed to carry on governing — even suggesting he wanted to stay in office until the 2030s.The final straw for Sunak and Javid was the prime minister’s shifting explanations about his handling of a sexual misconduct scandal.The latest scandal began last week when lawmaker Chris Pincher resigned as Conservative deputy chief whip amid complaints that he groped two men at a private club. That triggered a series of reports about past allegations leveled against Pincher and questions about why Johnson promoted him to a senior job enforcing party discipline. Johnson’s office initially said he wasn’t aware of the previous accusations when he promoted Pincher in February. By Monday, a spokesman said Johnson knew of allegations that were “either resolved or did not progress to a formal complaint.”When a former top civil servant in the Foreign Office said Johnson had been briefed about an allegation against Pincher in 2019, Johnson’s office changed its story again, saying the prime minister had forgotten that Pincher was the subject of an official complaint.It was all too much for ministers who have been sent onto radio and TV to defend the government’s position, only to find the position changing by the hour.Bim Afolami, who quit as Conservative Party vice-chairman on Tuesday, said he had been willing to give Johnson the benefit of the doubt, “but I think that in the last few weeks we’ve seen that things haven’t improved. They’ve got a lot worse.”“I think the behavior of Downing Street over the Chris Pincher affair was really appalling. And I, personally, just couldn’t think I could defend that sort of behavior any longer,” he told the BBC.Johnson’s opponents in the party hope more Cabinet ministers will follow Sunak and Javid, though for now other top officials — including Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, Defense Secretary Ben Wallace and Home Secretary Priti Patel — are staying put.Opponents are also trying to force another no-confidence vote over the prime minister. The existing rules require 12 months between such votes, but the rules are made by a powerful party committee — and elections for its executive are due in the next few weeks.___Follow all of AP’s coverage of Prime Minister Boris Johnson at https://apnews.com/hub/boris-johnson More

Nadhim Zahawi has denied he threatened to resign from Boris Johnson’s cabinet amid a tussle for the role as chancellor and also hinted a planned rise in corporation tax may be axed.The remarks from the newly appointed chancellor come as the prime minister clings to power after the twin resignations of Rishi Sunak and Sajid Javid, alongside a slew of junior aides.In his first comments since being appointed chancellor, Mr Zahawi rejected reports he threatened to quit the cabinet unless promoted to chancellor, saying: “No I didn’t threaten to resign at all”.Put to him that Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, was reportedly in line for the role as chancellor, and Mr Zahawi had said he would step down if he did not get the job, he told Sky News: “That is not true”.“This is a team game, you play for the team, you deliver for the nation. My focus has to be about delivery,” he added.“Sometimes walking away may give you some respite — dare I say it — but the idea you have to deliver for the country, the country that has given me everything, is the right thing to do.”Facing a bleak economic outlook, Mr Zahawi he wanted to get record-level inflation under control, insisting the government would be “really careful” about public sector pay and inflation isn’t “fuelled”.Last year, his predecessor Mr Sunak announced corporation tax would rise to 25 per cent from April 2023 — from a current rate of 19 per cent. More

Labour leader Keir Starmer is calling for snap election after Sajid Javid and Rishi Sunak dramatically quit, leaving Boris Johnson ‘on the brink’. The resignations of two of the most high-profile cabinet members was followed by Tory vice-chair Bim Afolami and a string parliamentary private secretaries on Tuesday evening.Sir Keir said the government was collapsing and the prime minister was unfit to govern – as talk of a snap election mounted.He said if ministers who had backed him had a shred of integrity “they would have gone months ago”. “The Tory party is corrupted, and changing one man at the top won’t fix it: we need a real change of government and a fresh start for Britain,” he said.Just four days ago, the prime minister dismissed the idea of calling a snap election, after 41 per cent of his party voted against him in a no-confidence vote last month.The UK’s next general election is scheduled for Thursday 2 May 2024 – but a snap election could mean voters being asked to go to the polls sooner.A snap vote is often held when the government needs to resolve a specific issue and is confident it will increase its majority without weeks of the usual campaigning.Until 2011, prime ministers were able to call an election whenever they felt the time was right within five years of the last one. More