UK Politics

Boris Johnson tried to win over backbenchers by ceding more power on Friday as No 10 insiders told The Independent that the increasingly isolated prime minister was becoming “unpredictable and erratic”.In the latest stage of his desperate bid to stave off a mutiny by Tory MPs, Mr Johnson announced the creation of backbench committees to advise on government policy and promised he would order cabinet ministers to take their views seriously.But with the resignation of a fifth key aide and a further MP publicly declaring no confidence in him, some supporters of the PM were urging him to short-circuit plots to remove him by calling a vote on his future himself.The PM tried to put a positive gloss on the shock clearout of senior officials in a pep talk to remaining staff, in which he quoted The Lion King as he told them: “Change is good.”But one official said not all of those watching the cabinet room address by video link were impressed.“He needs to show people he is serious, but then he can’t help himself,” said the No 10 insider. “Like with The Lion King, but also with ‘Operation Save Big Dog’ and the Peppa Pig madness.”Downing Street denied that the prime minister was losing control of the situation, after 24 hours in which key ally Munira Mirza walked out in protest at his “scurrilous” attempt to blame Keir Starmer for the failure to prosecute paedophile Jimmy Savile, and cabinet colleagues Rishi Sunak and Sajid Javid distanced themselves from the PM over the slur.The PM’s official spokesperson said that the resignations of principal private secretary Martin Reynolds, chief of staff Dan Rosenfield and director of communications Jack Doyle had been “mutually agreed” with Mr Johnson as part of his plan to reshape No 10 as an office of the prime minister.But the PM was hit by the unexpected departure of a member of his policy unit, Elena Narozanski, and the announcements that former minister Nick Gibb and red wall MP Aaron Bell had submitted a letter of no confidence to the chair of the backbench 1922 Committee.And there were reports of a cabinet civil war on Friday, with claims one minister urged Mr Johnson to sack Mr Sunak after his criticism of the PM’s comments about the Labour leader.Mr Gibb was the 14th Tory MP to publicly call for Mr Johnson to go, writing in Saturday’s Daily Telegraph that: “We need to face up to hard truths. To restore trust, we need to change the prime minister.”Earlier on Friday, Mr Bell had said the prime minister’s mishandling of the Partygate scandal amounted to a “breach of trust” that made his position untenable.And former Tory chair Chris Patten branded the PM a “moral vacuum” who had turned the Conservative Party into an “English nationalist, populist Johnsonian cult”.The scathing criticism came amid reports on Friday night that police had been handed a picture of Mr Johnson drinking a beer at a party to mark his birthday during the first coronavirus lockdown. The image, which one lawyers suggested may be proof Mr Johnson had committed a crime, threatened to derail the PM’s latest attempt to move on from the Partygate scandal.In a letter apparently designed to flatter Tory MPs into giving up on plans to oust him, Mr Johnson said he wanted to improve Downing Street by harnessing the “energy, experience and insight” of the parliamentary party.He said: “I promised change and that is what we will now deliver together.”In his address to Downing Street staff, the prime minister acknowledged that the government was going through “challenging times” and that misjudgements had been made.But he told them: “As Rafiki in The Lion King says, change is good, and change is necessary even though it’s tough. We’ve got to get on with our job of serving the people of this country.”The revival of the committees, first established under David Cameron, was broadly welcomed by Tory MPs, who have complained of being shut out of the decision-making process by a No 10 machine drawn tightly around the PM.“If he is seeking ideas from beyond a group of advisers who don’t appear to have advised him very well, that is definitely welcome,” said one MP.But another told The Independent: “Colleagues certainly like the idea of being consulted more, but I’m not sure that these committees had any influence under Cameron and I doubt they will now. It’s not going to change many minds.”One senior backbencher who is not seeking Mr Johnson’s removal said that the idea of the PM “doing a John Major” and calling a vote on his own future – as his predecessor did in 1995 – was gaining ground on the Tory benches.“If he called a confidence vote now, I think he’d win it and he’d have 12 months in which he couldn’t be challenged again,” said the veteran MP. “If he waits for the 54 letters to force a vote after the police inquiry and the publication of the Sue Gray report, I’m not so sure he’d survive.“If I was advising him, I’d tell him to do it. It would look bold and it would save him from being undermined further by weeks more of this uncertainty.”A No 10 insider told The Independent that the PM’s mood in regard to his predicament was swinging wildly.“He’s been erratic. Boisterous and confident one moment and then bleak and full of recriminations the next,” said the source, speaking anonymously. “It’s becoming a pattern. He was difficult to handle after he’d had Covid, and after Dom [Cummings, his former top adviser] left, but now he’s even worse. He’ll make a mess, like Savile, Peppa Pig, the early lines on parties – against the clearest advice – and then play the victim when it blows up in his face.”An ally of Mr Johnson’s told The Independent that the prime minister was “smarting from his injuries” and “acting in an unpredictable way”.Tory MPs who were summoned to one-to-one meetings in order that he could plead for their support said that the prime minister “plays the victim”, and that he had insisted he had done nothing wrong over the parties.But a government spokesperson said: “These claims are completely untrue. The prime minister is focused on delivering the people’s priorities. This includes levelling up, supporting households facing cost-of-living pressures from energy bills, and continuing to lead the response to the situation in Ukraine.”Mr Johnson’s official spokesperson insisted that the PM’s relations with Mr Sunak were “good”, after the chancellor yesterday admitted the government had lost public trust.Mr Javid today joined Mr Sunak in distancing himself from Mr Johnson’s discredited claim that, in his previous role as director of public prosecutions, Sir Keir had failed to prosecute Savile.“Keir Starmer, when he was DPP, did a good job and he should be respected for it,” the health secretary told reporters. “It is a tough job and he deserved absolute respect for that.” More

Police have reportedly been handed a photo of Boris Johnson holding a beer at his lockdown birthday party. The PM was pictured raising a can of Estrella towards the camera at the June 2020 event in the No 10 Cabinet Room, according to The Daily Mirror.He is said to be standing next to Rishi Sunak in the image taken by an official Downing Street photographer.Rules at the time banned most indoor gatherings with more than two people.The photo is said to have been among 300 the Metropolitan Police is examining as part of its investigation into Downing Street parties.The Met is looking into 12 gatherings and whether they broke Covid restrictions.The photograph was reportedly taken by Mr Johnson’s taxpayer-funded official photographer Andrew Parsons.Mr Sunak, who has previously said he was in the room for a Covid meeting, is understood to be holding a soft drink in the image. Barrister Adam Wagner, an expert in Covid laws, said: “The legal question for the prime minister is whether he participated in the gathering.“The fact that he was photographed holding a beer strongly suggest he did and therefore committed a criminal offence of the regulations”.Downing Street has already admitted a birthday celebration took place during the first lockdown.No 10 said staff “gathered briefly” in the Cabinet Room following a meeting, and the PM was there “for less than 10 minutes.”But ITV News reported the prime minister’s wife, Carrie Johnson had organised the surprise get-together complete with a chorus of “happy birthday” on the afternoon of 19 June 2020.It was alleged 30 people attended and shared cake despite social mixing indoors being banned.Interior designer Lulu Lytle admitted attending but insisted she was only present “briefly” while waiting to talk to Mr Johnson about the lavish refurbishments she was carrying out to the couple’s flat above No 11.ITV News also reported later that evening family friends were hosted upstairs to continue the PM’s 56th birthday celebrations in his official residence.No 10 denied this, saying: “In line with the rules at the time the Prime Minister hosted a small number of family members outside that evening.”Asked about the reports of the PM’s birthday photo, No 10 said it could not comment while the Met Police’s investigation was ongoing. The Treasury was also contacted for comment. More

Social media companies are to be required to take quicker action to remove revenge porn and other harmful content from their sites, under new measures unveiled by culture secretary Nadine Dorries today.But Labour branded the move “too weak” and called on Ms Dorries to toughen legislation to make top bosses at companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google criminally liable for systematic and repeated failures to ensure online safety.Meanwhile, changes to the Online Safety Bill will create new offences targeting harmful and abusive messages and “pile-on” harassment.New measures will also update pre-internet laws to ensure that consenting adults “sexting” naked images of themselves to one another are not caught by bans on “grossly offensive,” “obscene” or “indecent” communications.Instead, the law will be rewritten to focus on messages sent with the intention of causing psychological harm – which could include apparently innocuous content rendered abusive by its context, such as a woman fleeing a violent partner being sent a photo of her front door.Under the new bill, regulator Ofcom will be able to impose fines of as much as 10 per cent of global turnover on social media companies which fail to take down harmful material – or could even ban them from operating in the UK.Today’s new measures will require the sites to use automated or human content moderation to spot and remove content, ban illegal search terms and prevent blocked users from re-registering under new names.While sites are currently required to act proactively only in cases of terrorism and child sex abuse, the legislation will extend this list to include content currently requiring action only if it prompts complaints. This will include revenge porn, hate crime, fraud, the sale of illegal drugs or weapons, the promotion or facilitation of suicide, people smuggling and sexual exploitation.Ms Dorries said: “Today’s changes mean we will be able to bring the full weight of the law against those who use the internet as a weapon to ruin people’s lives and do so quicker and more effectively.”But her Labour shadow Lucy Powell said Ofcom needs tougher powers to take on social media giants, without which it will be hopelessly outgunned in a “David and Goliath” battle.She said: “The Online Safety Bill is too weak to make big tech firms sit up and take notice, and ensure that hate, crime and child abuse are stamped out in the online world.“The regulator Ofcom will be taking on some of the biggest tech firms in the world. It’s a David and Goliath situation, and Ofcom must have access to the full range of tools in its belt, including making top bosses criminally liable for persistently failing to tackle online harms.” More

Ex-minister Nick Gibb has called on Boris Johnson to resign, piling further pressure on the prime minister as he seeks to stave off a backbench rebellion.Mr Gibb, the long-serving former schools minister, on Friday night became the 14th Conservative MP to publicly announce he had submitted a letter of no-confidence in the PM.His intervention came hours after Red Wall MP Aaron Bell also called for Mr Johnson to go.Mr Gibb attacked Mr Johnson for “flagrantly disregarding” rules he had set “within the fortress of 10 Downing Street”.He said his constituents were “furious about the double standards” and the prime minister had been “inaccurate” in statements to the Commons.Writing in The Telegraph, the MP for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton said: “The prime minister accepted the resignation of Allegra Stratton for joking about a Christmas party that she hadn’t attended, but he won’t take responsibility for those that he did attend.“I am sorry to say that it is hard to see how it can be the case that the prime minister told the truth.”He said there was still support for the prime minister in his constituency, but that voters were also questioning whether they could trust Mr Johnson.The MP said: “To restore trust, we need to change the prime minister.”It came amid another bruising day for Mr Johnson.Earlier, MP Aaron Bell also announced he had submitted a letter of no-confidence.He said Boris Johnson’s position was “untenable” because of his handling of the Partygate scandal and the “breach of trust” represented by the series of lockdown-breaking events at 10 Downing Street.In a desperate bid to stave off a mutiny by Tory MPs, Mr Johnson announced the creation of backbench committees to advise on government policy and vowed he would order cabinet ministers to take their views seriously.But after the resignation of five key aides less than 24 hours, some supporters of the PM were urging him to short-circuit plots to remove him by calling a vote on his future himself.No 10 insiders warned the increasingly isolated prime minister is becoming “unpredictable and erratic”.Boris Johnson attempted to put a positive gloss on the exodus of senior officials from 10 Downing Street by quoting The Lion King.“Change is good,” he told those remaining following the string of departures. More

Red Wall MP Aaron Bell has become the 13th Conservative parliamentarian publicly to call for Boris Johnson to stand down, as he submitted a letter of no confidence in the prime minister.Mr Bell said that the prime minister’s position was “untenable” because of his handling of the Partygate scandal and the “breach of trust” represented by the series of lockdown-breaching events at 10 Downing Street.His statement was released as Mr Johnson made a bid to shore up his parliamentary support by offering Tory backbenchers “a direct line into 10 Downing Street”.In a letter to all Conservative MPs, the PM said he would re-establish backbench policy committees to give them a way of generating ideas and discussion to feed into government decisions.And he said he will order cabinet ministers to engage “properly” with the backbench committees and take their views seriously.MP Andrew Griffith, appointed on Thursday to replace Munira Mirza as director of policy at No 10 , will be tasked with ensuring the system is a success, said Johnson.And he pledged: “I promised change and that is what we will now deliver together.”Mr Bell was among the wave of Tories to seize traditionally Labour seats in the Midlands and North of England in Mr Johnson’s landslide victory in 2019.He holds his Newcastle-under-Lyme seat with a relatively comfortable majority of 7,446, but the Staffordshire town had not previously been won by a Tory since 1859 and is certain to be a target for Labour at the next election.A Brexiteer and supporter of Mr Johnson at the time of the 2019 leadership election, Mr Bell said he was “profoundly disappointed” by developments of recent months.He voiced his frustration in the Commons debate on Partygate on Monday, recounting how he had observed social distancing regulations at his grandmother’s funeral and asking: “Does the Prime Minister think I’m a fool?”In a statement confirming that he has submitted a no-confidence letter to the chair of the Tory backbench 1922 Committee, Sir Graham Brady, Mr Bell said that he “could not square” Mr Johnson’s comments in the Commons with previous statements to MPs that Covid regulations had been observed at No 10.“I have also struggled to reconcile assurances given directly to me with the implications of Sue Gray’s interim findings,” he said.“As someone who backed Brexit and backed Boris Johnson for the leadership in 2019, I am profoundly disappointed that it has come to this.“The government that the prime minister has led delivered some huge successes, including the vaccine rollout and nearly £35m for Newcastle-under-Lyme to level up.“However, the breach of trust that the events in No 10 Downing Street represent, and the manner in which they have been handled, makes his position untenable”.Sir Graham must call a confidence vote if he receives 54 letters from MPs demanding one. If Mr Johnson survives the vote by securing the support of more than half of MPs, he cannot be challenged again for another year. More

A former Conservative Party chairman has labelled Boris Johnson a “moral vacuum” for his failure to apologise for the false claim that Sir Keir Starmer failed to prosecute Jimmy Savile.In a stinging attack on the prime minister, Lord Chris Patten also suggested the party had undergone “fundamental change” with some sections having “turned into an English nationalist, populist, Johnsonian cult”.His intervention comes after an exodus of senior officials from No 10, including Mr Johnson’s long-standing aide Munira Mirza, who quit last night in protest at the prime minister’s comments towards Sir Keir in the Commons.Three other officials, including the No 10 director of communications and chief-of-staff, also announced their departure from Downing Street amid the ongoing fallout over allegations of parties during Covid restrictions.Addressing the prime minister’s widely condemned comments on Saville, which has also attracted criticism from Tory MPs, Lord Patten told the BBC’s World at One: “I always thought the show was likely to end in disaster.“And I fear that’s whats happened,” he said. “It’s been particularly scarred in the last act by this sort of scurrilous attack on Keir Starmer for which there was no purpose, other than to try to get a few members of the right-wing of the Conservative party in the House of Commons excited”.He also praised the chancellor, Rishi Sunak — tipped as Mr Johnson’s most likely successor if he is forced from office — for distancing himself from the prime minister’s remarks during a press conference on Thursday.“I’ve heard other ministers being asked whether they would repeat the words and they sort of dodge and dart and duck and bob and weave without being prepared to say it,” the former cabinet minister said.“But it was obviously completely unnecessary and just an example of him saying whatever suits him at any given moment.”After it emerged Ms Mirza had privately urged the prime minister to apologise for the comments to the Labour leader, Lord Patten said Mr Johnson “took no notice because I think he’s incapable of doing that — I think he is a moral vacuum”.His comments appear to echo those of another Tory grandee, Sir Malcolm Rifkind, who told BBC Newsnight the prime minister had become “toxic”, adding: “With the best will in the world, one has to say this is not so much the end of the beginning but it is the beginning of the end”. More

Boris Johnson this morning attempted to put a positive gloss on the exodus of senior officials from 10 Downing Street, quoting The Lion King as he told remaining staff: “Change is good.”In an address to his No 10 team in the cabinet room – watched by some on video link – the prime minister acknowledged that the government was going through “challenging times” and misjudgments had been made.But he told them: “As Rafiki in the Lion King says, change is good, and change is necessary even though it’s tough. We’ve got to get on with our job of serving the people of this country.”The PM’s official spokesperson denied that senior officials Martin Reynolds, Dan Rosenfield and Jack Doyle were effectively sacked as Johnson conducts a shake-up of Downing Street in a bid to shore up his position in the wake of the Partygate scandal.The spokesperson said the departures were “mutually agreed”, though he confirmed that the resignations of policy chief Munira Mirza on Thursday and policy unit member Elena Narozanski were not planned.Mr Johnson was applauded by staff after telling them that, at the half-way point in a five-year term in office, it was time to “eat their half-time oranges, spit out the peel and get stuck back in”.No appointments are expected imminently for the departed staff, with principal private secretary Reynolds, chief of staff Rosenfield and director of communications Doyle remaining in post as the recruitment process for their replacements gets under way. He said all three announcements had been planned before the shock resignation of policy chief Ms Mirza, who inflicted a devastating blow on her long-time boss by walking out over his refusal to apologise for a “scurrilous” smear falsely linking Keir Starmer with the disgraced paedophile Jimmy Savile.The chief of staff and comms roles are political appointments, but Mr Reynolds’ post will be filled through the standard civil service procedures, as will the choice of a permanent secretary to head the new Office of the Prime Minister.Mr Johnson’s spokesperson said that no further departures from No 10 were currently anticipated. And he insisted that the PM’s relations with Rishi Sunak were “good”, after the chancellor yesterday admitted the government had lost public trust and distanced himself from Johnson’s Savile slur.Health secretary Sajid Javid today became the second cabinet minister to distance himself from Johnson’s discredited claim that, in his previous role as director of public prosecutions, Sir Keir had failed to prosecute the celebrity abuser.Mr Javid told reporters: “Keir Starmer, when he was running the DPP, did a good job and he should be respected for it, it is a tough job and he deserved absolute respect for that.“But the Prime Minister has also come out and clarified those remarks, and that is important.”Asked if the Prime Minister still had his support, Mr Javid said: “Of course he does. Absolutely.”Mr Johnson’s reference to The Lion King is the latest in a string of popular culture icons he has shoehorned into his comments recently, after he asked the CBI if they liked Peppa Pig and compared Starmer and his deputy Angela Rayner to cartoon duo Dastardly and Muttley.In the 1994 animated movie, lion prince Simba tells mandrill shaman Rafiki “Looks like the winds are changing”. Rafiki replies “Change is good”, prompting the response from Simba: “Yeah, but it’s not easy”.Confirming the PM’s use of the line, Mr Johnson’s spokesperson told reporters: “He reflected on the privilege of working in No 10 in order to deliver for the British people and reiterated his and No 10’s commitment to serving the public by keeping people safe, improving lives and spreading opportunity.“As he reiterated to the team today, there is an important job to do, the public expects us to be focused on it, whether it is the situation in Ukraine, recovering from the pandemic or, as the Chancellor was setting out yesterday, on issues such as cost of living.” More

Boris Johnson ‘toxic’ even to his allies, says Malcom RifkindBoris Johnson this morning attempted to put a positive gloss on the exodus of senior officials from 10 Downing Street by quoting The Lion King.“Change is good,” he told those remaining after a fifth aide walked out of No 10 within 24 hours.According to Conservative Home, Elena Narozanski, a former adviser to the cabinet minister Michael Gove and Theresa May during her tenure as home secretary, quit her role in the Downing Street policy unit.Her exit follows the departures of Jack Doyle, communications director, Martin Reynolds, principle private secretary, Dan Rosenfield, chief of staff, and Munira Mirza, head of policy.Greg Hands, the energy minister, said today: “The prime minister was absolutely clear on Monday that there would be changes at the top of No 10 and that is what he has delivered.”Reports say that Ms Mirza’s shock resignation sparked a clear-out of No 10 as the PM tried to take back control of events.Show latest update

1643985865Boris Johnson labelled ‘moral vacuum’ over Savile comments by former Tory chairmanA former Conservative Party chairman has labelled Boris Johnson a “moral vacuum” for his failure to apologise for the false claim that Sir Keir Starmer failed to prosecute Jimmy Savile.In a stinging attack on the prime minister, Lord Chris Patten also suggested the party had undergone “fundamental change” with some sections having “turned into an English nationalist, populist, Johnsonian cult”.Our politics correspondent Ashley Cowburn has more here:Matt Mathers4 February 2022 14:441643984218PM told me there was only a 30% of new Brexit deal for NI, DUP leader saysBoris Johnson told DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson there was only a “30 per cent chance” of a new Brexit deal for Northern Ireland, he has said.“I met with the prime minister last week, I asked the prime minister two straight questions,” Mr Donaldson told BBC Radio Ulster.”I asked him what he thought were the prospects of agreement being reached with the EU on the protocol within the next few weeks.“His answer was ‘20 to 30 per cent chance of agreement”.Ashley Cowburn, our politics correspondent, has more on this story and a judge’s decision to block an order to suspend protocol checks, below: Matt Mathers4 February 2022 14:161643983502PM will find it ‘almost impossible’ to effectively rebuild teamBoris Johnson will find it “almost impossible” to rebuild his senior team from scratch, the leader of the union representing senior civil servants has said.FDA general secretary Dave Penman said the loss of four senior figures at the same time will have a huge impact on the way the Government works.”To lose so many critical posts at once really is undermining the effective working of No 10,” he told BBC Radio 4’s The World at One.”You have now got to replace with them people of experience, with people who understand how the Prime Minister works, with people who have got policy experience in the areas that they are going to be dealing with, and that is going to be very difficult.”I don’t think there will be necessarily a shortage of who people want the job. The question is whether you are going to get the right people for the job, particularly when you are looking to build such a core team almost from scratch.”It would be a challenge to fill each of these jobs individually, to do four of them at the one time is almost impossible.”Matt Mathers4 February 2022 14:051643982557Javid ‘frustrated’ at having to answer questions on partygateThe health secretary has admitted it is frustrating to have to answer questions around partygate and Downing Street resignations while making major policy announcements.Sajid Javid faced a series of questions from reporters after a speech setting out his ambitions to improve cancer prevention and diagnosis.He said: “I think first of all the prime minister has responded to the situation – obviously there are still investigations going on and, as he has rightly said, to have a full response we need to wait for the outcome of those further investigations. More