UK Politics

The leader of Canada’s Conservative party is facing a revolt by his party’s lawmakers and could be ousted as soon as Wednesday. If successful it would be the third main political rival that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has helped bring down. Garnett Genuis, a Conservative member of Parliament, tweeted late Monday that one-third of the Conservative lawmakers have signed a letter calling for the end of Erin O’Toole’s leadership. Genuis went public after many news organizations reported on the revolt. He accused O’Toole’s team of attacking members of his own party. O’Toole lost the election last fall to Trudeau. He tried to move his party to the center, but alienated his party’s base and was accused of being two-faced. Whether O’Toole remains Conservative leader has big implications for the conservative movement in Canada. If removed, the party could swing back further right. One of the leading candidates to replace him, Pierre Poilievre, met with anti-vaccine truckers who are taking part in a protest in Ottawa Many Canadians were outraged by images over the weekend of protesters urinating on the National War Memorial and dancing on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. A number carried signs and flags with swastikas and other Nazi symbols. “Just talked with hundreds of cheerful, salt-of-the-earth, give-you-the-shirt-off-their-back Canadians at the trucker protest. They choose freedom over fear,” Poilievre tweeted. O’Toole advertised himself a year ago as a “true-blue Conservative.” He became Conservative Party leader with a pledge to “take back Canada,” but immediately started working to push the party toward the political center.O’Toole’s strategy, which included disavowing positions held dear by his party’s base on climate change, guns and balanced budgets, was designed to appeal to a broader cross section of voters in a country that tends to be far more liberal than the United States.Whether moderate Canadians believed O’Toole is the progressive conservative he claims to be and whether he alienated traditional Conservatives became central questions of the campaign. O’Toole failed to win more seats in and around vote-rich liberal Toronto Canada’s largest city. Trudeau bet Canadians didn’t want a Conservative government during a pandemic and voiced the concerns of Canadians who were upset with those who refuse to get vaccinated. After last year’s election loss, the Conservative members of Parliament gave themselves the power to vote on O’Toole’s leadership. In correspondence to Conservative lawmakers Monday evening, Scott Reid, chair of the Conservative party caucus, said the notice he received was valid and more details would follow on when a leadership vote would happen.Conservative lawmakers are next set to meet Wednesday. A vote on the leadership of O’Toole, whose office did not immediately respond to a request for comment, would happen by secret ballot.Alberta Conservative lawmaker Bob Benzen, who supported O’Toole previously, said that the leader has flip-flopped on party policy and that it is time for party lawmakers to decide his fate.“Mr. O’Toole campaigned in in the leadership contest as a principled conservative voice that unite the party, However, since Mr. O’Toole assumed the position of Leader, there have been numerous instances of flip-flops and questionable judgement,” Benzen wrote. He listed O’Toole’s failure to stand up for the rights of Canadians during the pandemic as one of the problems. “I feel that the Conservative caucus has given Mr. O’Toole more than enough chances for a course correction to resolve the concerns of many of the grassroots members of our party,” Benzen wrote. “In consideration of Mr. O’Toole’s record as leader, I believe a caucus leadership review is the only way to avoid a dangerous split in the Conservative party that may not be repairable.” More

Boris Johnson is to hold discussions with Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy in a visit to the country on Tuesday.The prime minister, who will be accompanied by foreign secretary Liz Truss, will promise to “uphold Ukraine’s sovereignty” amid mounting tensions with Russia.But he may turn up without having spoken to Vladimir Putin after the domestic scandal over illegal parties forced him to reschedule a planned phone call with the Russian leader.The tele-meeting had originally been scheduled for Monday afternoon but as the evening the Kremlin was unable to offer Mr Johnson another spot in Mr Putin’s diary.Mr Johnson was too busy on the domestic front dealing with the fallout from the Sue Gray inquiry to honour the original planned time.As news of the PM’s trip to Ukraine emerged prime minister also faced speculation and criticism that he was fleeing the country to escape bad news about lockdown rule breaking.Ahead of the meeting, Mr Johnson said: “It is the right of every Ukrainian to determine how they are governed. As a friend and a democratic partner, the UK will continue to uphold Ukraine’s sovereignty in the face of those who seek to destroy it.“We urge Russia to step back and engage in dialogue to find a diplomatic resolution and avoid further bloodshed.”Russia has placed around 100,000 troops near Ukraine’s border but denies it has plans to invade the country.The PM has previously said the UK could deploy troops to protect Nato allies if Russia invades Ukraine.Ukraine is however not a part of Nato, and Russia wants the alliance to promise it will never be allowed to join.Russia views Nato as a threat to its security and is concerned about increasing Western influence over Ukraine, which it was in political and economic union with until the 1990s.But Ukraine’s leaders say its future lies in closer ties with Western Europe and that it should be able to choose its own destiny. Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in 2014 and has backed rebels who have seized large parts of the eastern Donbas region. More

Boris Johnson was forced into a humiliating apology in the House of Commons after a damning report into allegations of lockdown-busting parties blasted “failures of leadership and judgement” at 10 Downing Street.The heavily abridged report by senior civil servant Sue Gray revealed that the Metropolitan Police are conducting a criminal investigation into 12 separate events in No 10 and other government departments, including at least three believed to have been attended by the prime minister.It stated that some of gatherings represented “a serious failure to observe not just the high standards expected of those working at the heart of government but also of the standards expected of the entire British population at the time”.Sir Keir Starmer branded the PM a “man without shame” as Mr Johnson brushed off demands for his resignation and promised to “fix” the problem with a shake-up of No 10 staff and a review of codes of conduct for civil servants and advisers.Tory MP Angela Richardson announced she had quit her job as parliamentary private secretary to cabinet minister Michael Gove, citing “deep disappointment” with Johnson’s handling of the scandal. And a minister told The Independent he was “considering his position” after the PM’s disappointing response.A snap poll by Opinium found 64 per cent of voters think Tory MPs should remove Johnson through a confidence vote, 83 per cent believe he broke lockdown rules and 75 per cent think he is not telling the truth.SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford was ejected from the Commons for refusing to retract his use of the word “liar” to describe Johnson. And Tory former chief whip Andrew Mitchell told the PM he no longer had his support.Tory MP Aaron Bell – a member of the red wall group of Conservatives in traditionally Labour seats in the Midlands and north – asked if the PM regarded him as “a fool” for obeying social distancing rules at his grandmother’s funeral.But there was no immediate sign of the flood of confidence letters to Sir Graham Brady, the chair of the backbench 1922 Committee, which would trigger a vote on Johnson’s future as Tory leader if they pass the threshold of 54.Mr Johnson was subjected to a withering putdown in the Commons by predecessor Theresa May, who demanded to know if he had failed to understand the rules which he imposed on the country or whether he thought they did not apply to him.And he was forced into a hasty U-turn after MPs responded with outrage to his suggestion that Ms Gray’s full report might never be published. After initially saying the PM would consider whether to release it following the completion of the Met investigation, Downing Street issued a statement to say it would be published in full.The 12-page “update” released by the senior civil servant today contained none of the extensive factual information which she has gathered from interviews with more than 70 people, as well as analysis of emails, WhatsApp and text messages, photographs and Downing Street entry logs.Police said they had received more than 300 photos and 500 pages of information, but Ms Gray said it was impossible for her to produce a “meaningful” report while Scotland Yard imposes limits on what she can say about the most serious alleged offences.Instead, her report gave a scathing assessment of the culture inside government departments which saw alcohol-fuelled gatherings of staff at a time when members of the public faced fines for meetings outside their householdsThese included the ”bring your own booze” party on 20 May 2020 when Mr Johnson joined around 40 No 10 staff to drink alcohol and eat picnic food from trestle tables in the Downing Street rose garden, as well as his birthday celebrations with cake in the cabinet room and an alleged party in the PM’s flat on the evening of the resignation of former aide Dominic Cummings on 13 November 2020.In the Commons, Mr Johnson refused to withdraw his previous statement to parliament that the 13 November event did not take place, but his press secretary later said that he “stands by” his earlier comment.The Gray report stated: “At times it seems there was too little thought given to what was happening across the country in considering the appropriateness of some of these gatherings, the risks they presented to public health and how they might appear to the public.“There were failures of leadership and judgment by different parts of No 10 and the Cabinet Office at different times.”And she concluded: “A number of these gatherings should not have been allowed to take place or to develop in the way that they did.”Sir Keir Starmer said that the report had shown Mr Johnson to be “unfit for office” and called on him to step down.Citing Margaret Thatcher’s dictum that ministers cannot “bob and weave and duck” around the laws they make, he said Tory MPs had a “duty” to remove Johnson from No 10.“They can go on degrading themselves, eroding trust in politics and insulting the sacrifice of the British public,” said Starmer. “They can heap their reputations, the reputation of their party, and the reputation of this country, on the bonfire that is his leadership.“Or they can spare the country from a prime minister totally unworthy of his responsibilities.“It is only they who can end this farce. The eyes of the country are upon them. They will be judged on the decisions they take now.”Insisting that he would show his government could be trusted, Mr Johnson announced plans to reshape No 10 as an Office of the Prime Minister led by a permanent secretary, as well as to enforce codes of conduct for civil servants and special advisers more stringently.He attempted to kick off a fightback with a behind-closed-doors address to the Tory parliamentary party which one MP described as “barnstorming”. Leader of the Commons Jacob Rees-Mogg said he had not heard any calls for Johnson to go, telling reporters the PM had “managed to maintain the support of the party pretty much throughout”.The mood among officials at the Cabinet Office and No 10 was grim, with one saying they were preparing for a week of “shuffle and slaughter”.Three sources told The Independent that the report’s trimmed state had made it easier for the prime minister to blame staff and officials.The Cabinet Office does not reveal details of individual disciplinary action against government employees. However, The Independent understands that steps could be taken to reprimand or punish staff found to be at fault by the report immediately. But in some cases, this may not be possible until the police have completed their separate investigation. More

Jacob Rees-Mogg has launched a spirited defence of Boris Johnson’s leadership in the wake of Sue Gray’s No 10 party report.The prime minister gathered a meeting of Tory MPs on Monday night in parliament – in a bid to head off a leadership challenge by rebels.Speaking to reporters outside the meeting Mr Rees Mogg, the Commons leader, said the PM retained the confidence of his party.“I’ve never been in a room where everyone’s agreed with me but I thought support for the prime minister was very strong,” he said.“I don’t think there were that many wavering backbenchers, I think he’s managed to maintain the support of the party pretty much throughout.”The senior Tory also warned off potential leadership contenders, stating: “The thing about throwing your hat in the ring is often that you find it’s thrown straight back at you.”Asked about the prime minister’s leadership Mr Rees-Mogg described the PM as a “very strong and effective leader””The prime minister has a very strong idea of what he wants to do and where he wants to to go. He is a proper leader, I don’t know what else you could want in a leader,” he added.Rebels laid low or stayed away from the Monday night meeting, with most accounts from inside suggesting the PM received a positive reception.Another Tory MP said the prime minister’s performance in the room was “quite barnstorming”, and “full of energy”.Mr Johnson is said to have banged the table in emphasis during the discussion in what was described as “a very strong performance”.Meanwhile Peterborough MP Paul Bristow acknowledged that the report’s release been a “difficult day” but said there was support for Boris Johnson.Mr Bristow said he left the meeting “absolutely pumped” in his support for the PM and added that nobody in the meeting had called for the PM to quit.Mr Rees-Mogg gave a similar account. When asked whether anyone had called for the PM to quit, he said: “Nobody’s said that. He’s got huge support and he’s got a mandate from the British people.”Polls suggest the PM is now a drag on his party’s fortunes; Labour has opened up a 10-point lead over the government. Sue Gray’s report into rule-breaking at Downing Street was released on Monday afternoon. It found that many of the parties held at Downing Street should not have taken place within the rules, and revealed that the Metropolitan Police were investigating around a dozen events.The prime minister was also accused of misleading parliament over the issue. More

A Conservative backbencher asked the prime minister if he thought him a “fool” after recounting how he closely adhered to the government’s Covid restrictions during his grandmother’s lockdown funeral.Aaron Bell, MP for Newcastle-under-Lyme, was among several Tory parliamentarians who criticised the conduct within No 10 following the publication of Sue Gray’s partial report into a number of lockdown parties held in the heart of government.The civil servant’s report concluded “a number of these gatherings should not have been allowed to take place or to develop in the way that they did.”Ms Gray added there is “significant learning” to be drawn from her findings, and that government need not wait its reckoning from the Met Police, after the force demanded that certain details be excluded from the report.Mr Bell told the Commons: “It seems a lot of people attended events in May 2020 – the one I recall attending was my grandmother’s funeral.“She was a wonderful woman. As well as a love for her family she served her community as a councillor and she served Dartford Conservative Association loyally for many years.He added: “I drove for three hours from Staffordshire to Kent, there were only 10 at the funeral, many people who loved her had to watch online.“I didn’t hug my siblings, I didn’t hug my parents, I gave the eulogy and then afterwards I didn’t even go to her house for a cup of tea. I drove back three hours from Kent to Staffordshire.“Does the prime minister think I’m a fool?”Mr Johnson replied: “No, and I want to thank (Mr Bell) and I want to say how deeply I sympathise with him and his family for their loss, and all I can say is again that I’m very, very sorry for misjudgments that may have been made by me or anybody else in No 10 and the Cabinet Office.”Meanwhile, a Conservative MP announced on Monday evening she had quit her government job, citing “deep disappointment” with Boris Johnson’s handling of the Partygate scandal.Guildford MP Angela Richardson said she had stood down as parliamentary private secretary to Michael Gove in order to be able to “hold the government to account as a critical friend”.In a statement released this evening, she said: “Sue Gray’s report published today clearly states that there were failings at No 10 Downing Street that let us all down. The prime minister again apologised for those.“I share the deep disappointment that it has taken so long to get to this stage when there could have been an early acknowledgement and apology.” More

A Conservative MP today announced she has quit her government job, citing “deep disappointment” with Boris Johnson’s handling of the Partygate scandal.Guildford MP Angela Richardson said she had stood down as parliamentary private secretary to Michael Gove in order to be able to “hold the government to account as a critical friend”.She said that Mr Johnson’s comments on the lockdown-breaching gatherings at 10 Downing Street “ring hollow” with nurses who had served in NHS intensive care units through the Covid-19 pandemic.And she said that the process of rebuilding voters’ trust will only be possible once Sue Gray’s report into the 16 events has been published in full.It is the second time Ms Richardson – who entered parliament in 2019 as part of the new intake swept into the Commons by Mr Johnson’s landslide victory – has left the PPS post.She was fired as Mr Gove’s PPS in November last year after abstaining in a vote to overhaul the Commons standards rulebook to save Owen Paterson from punishment for paid lobbying. But she was reinstated the following day when Mr Johnson U-turned on the issue.In a statement setting out her decision to quit now, she said that constituents had sent her many moving stories of family tragedies and struggles with mental and physical health resulting from the tough lockdown rules imposed by Mr Johnson.And she said: “Any request for a sense of perspective from those around No 10 rang hollow with the ITU (intensive care unit) nurse that I spoke to while out knocking doors at the weekend.“Frontline NHS workers like her had also been working hard through the pandemic, putting their health and lives on the line to save others.“Sue Gray’s report published today clearly states that there were failings at No 10 Downing Street that let us all down. The prime minister again apologised for those.“I share the deep disappointment that it has taken so long to get to this stage when there could have been an early acknowledgement and apology.“It also seems as though there are further questions to which we do not yet have the answer because of the Metropolitan Police investigation.” More

Police investigating Downing Street parties have been given more than 300 photos and 500 pages of information, Scotland Yard has said.Commander Catherine Roper gave an update on the investigation after Sue Gray’s report revealed that police are probing 12 events, including a birthday celebration for the prime minister and alleged party inside his private flat.She said police were reviewing a huge amount of written evidence in order to confirm which politicians and civil servants will need to be contacted.A spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police said it would be “necessary for us to contact those who attended these events to get their account”.“The reason this request is necessary is that in any investigation officers seek independent accounts from each individual, as free from the influence of others’ recollections as possible,” a statement added. “Officers would also seek to avoid providing details of their investigation in advance to those they contact, so that individuals are not tempted to shape their accounts according to what is in the public domain.”The force said the move was “a standard approach in all investigations … and not a judgement on the individuals who attended these specific event”.The Metropolitan Police will be contacting people suspected of breaching Covid restrictions in writing and asking whether they had a “reasonable excuse” in law for the gathering.If they do not, it can issue fines of between £100 and £10,000, depending on the law that was in force at the time, the size of the gathering and the person’s role.Scotland Yard confirmed that it had asked the Cabinet Office not to detail information on the events in the redacted report released on Monday, but stressed that the request only applies for the duration of its probe, and not to the four events that did not reach the threshold for criminal investigation. Boris Johnson repeatedly refused calls, including from senior Tory MPs, for a commitment to publishing the full unredacted report in the House of Commons.Mr Johnson issued an apology and insisted he was “making changes” to Downing Street and the Cabinet Office, including by creating a new Office of the Prime Minister.Ms Gray’s report said that of the 16 events examined as part of her inquiry, only four were not being investigated by the police.“Unfortunately, this necessarily means that I am extremely limited in what I can say about those events, and it is not possible at present to provide a meaningful report setting out and analysing the extensive factual information I have been able to gather,” she said.Theresa May tells PM he either didn’t understand Covid rules or thought he was exempt“It is not for me to make a judgment on whether the criminal law has been broken; that is properly a matter for law enforcement. “In line with my terms of reference I have been in regular contact with the Metropolitan Police as my work has progressed in order for them to take decisions on the gatherings under examination, including whether to launch their own investigation.”Scotland Yard is investigating the 20 May 2020 gathering in Downing Street’s garden, where a leaked email showed staff had been invited to “bring your own booze”.Police are not looking at a gathering that took place five days before, where a photograph showed wine and cheese being consumed by the prime minister, his wife and other attendees.Officers are investigating a gathering held in the Cabinet Office on 18 June 2020 to mark the departure of a Downing Street private secretary, and Mr Johnson’s birthday celebration the following day.Two gatherings on 13 November 2020 are under police investigation – an alleged party in the prime minister’s flat and a separate Downing Street gathering marking the departure of a special adviser. England was in lockdown at the time.Scotland Yard is not investigating a Downing Street special adviser’s leaving gathering where the prime minister gave a speech on 27 November 2020, or a Department for Education Christmas gathering on 10 December 2020.The force has also excluded Downing Street’s festive quiz on 15 December 2020, but are looking at a Cabinet Office Christmas quiz held two days later.Police are probing two further celebrations on 17 December 2020, which were separate leaving dos for Cabinet Office and Downing Street officials.Downing Street’s alleged 18 December 2020 Christmas party is under police investigation, as is a gathering for two Number 10 private secretaries on 14 January last year.Two celebrations held on the eve of Prince Philip’s funeral – 16 April – for Downing Street’s then director of communications James Slack and Mr Johnson’s personal photographer – are also part of Scotland Yard’s probe.According to reports, attendees danced to music and at one point a staffer was sent to a local Co-op supermarket with a suitcase that they filled with bottles of wine.The events being investigated by the police are:20 May 2020-in the garden of No 10 Downing Street for No 10 staff18 June 2020- in the Cabinet Office, 70 Whitehall to mark the departure of a No 10 private secretary19 June 2020- in the Cabinet room in No 10 Downing Street on the prime minister’s birthday13 November 2020-in the No 10 Downing Street flat- in No 10 Downing Street to mark the departure of a special adviser17 December 2020-in Cabinet Office, 70 Whitehall for an online Christmas quiz for the cabinet secretary’s private office-in Cabinet Office, 70 Whitehall to mark the departure of a senior Cabinet Office official- in No 10 Downing Street for the departure of a No 10 official18 December 2020- in No 10 Downing Street ahead of the Christmas break14 January 2021- in No 10 Downing Street on the departure of two No 10 private secretaries16 April 2021- in No 10 Downing Street for the departure of a senior No 10 official More