Boris Johnson’s apology to the House of Commons for breaching Covid lockdown rules has failed to appease Conservative critics who are calling for his head, with one former Tory chief whip publicly branding him “unworthy” of the office of prime minister.
Prominent backbencher Mark Harper submitted a letter of no confidence in the prime minister, accusing him of asking Tory MPs to “defend the indefensible” as crucial local elections approach.
And one former minister, who has not yet written a no-confidence letter, told The Independent after the PM’s apology that “it will never be glad confident morning again” for Mr Johnson.
“It may be unfair but it’s time to say ‘thank you and goodbye’,” said the ex-minister.
Mr Johnson’s apology was dismissed as a “joke” by Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, as the PM again denied that he had deliberately misled parliament – something which the ministerial code makes clear is a resigning matter.
Mr Starmer again called for the PM to resign and urged Tory MPs to “bring an end to this shameful chapter” by joining Labour in voting on Thursday for a formal parliamentary investigation into his actions.
He told the house that the PM’s comments amounted to an “insult” to ordinary Britons who made sacrifices during the pandemic, citing a man named John Robinson who did not visit his wife in hospital as she died of Covid because he was observing the rules which Mr Johnson had set but “blithely, repeatedly and deliberately ignored”.
In his first comments to the Commons since being fined £50 by police for attending a birthday party in the cabinet room at a time in June 2020 when social gatherings were banned by law, the prime minister repeated what he said was “a wholehearted apology” to voters.
But asked if he had deliberately misled the house by telling MPs in December that Covid rules were followed at No 10, he replied firmly: “No.”
He faced heckles of “resign” and “criminal” as he told MPs: “Let me … say, not by way of mitigation or excuse, but purely because it explains my previous words in this House, that it didn’t occur to me, then or subsequently, that a gathering in the cabinet room just before a vital meeting on Covid strategy could amount to a breach of the rules. That was my mistake, and I apologise for it unreservedly.”
However, he could face charges that he broke the code’s requirement for ministers always to comply with the law, after admitting for the first time that he broke it. Asked if he thought that he had broken the law, Mr Johnson replied: “I completely accept that the police are right and that’s why I paid the fine.”
Mr Harper, who stood against Mr Johnson in the 2019 leadership election, announced he had sent a no-confidence letter to the chair of the backbench 1922 Committee, Sir Graham Brady, who must call a vote on the PM’s position if 54 Tory MPs demand it.
“We have a PM who broke the rules that he told the public to follow, hasn’t been straightforward about it – and is now going to ask the decent men and women on these benches to defend the indefensible,” said Mr Harper, who has won a following among Mr Johnson’s critics as chair of the Covid Recovery Group.
“I’m very sorry to have to say this, but I no longer think he is worthy of the great office that he holds.”
Cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg later attacked Mr Harper for his statement. “Mark had been gearing up for that for some time … It was quite funny when he said how much it pained him when he was clearly enjoying the moment thoroughly,” he told LBC Radio.
But veteran backbencher Sir Roger Gale, who was the first to call for Mr Johnson to go, told The Independent that there remained “a lot” of unhappy people on the Tory benches following the PM’s statement.
“As an apology it was pretty abject, but it doesn’t in my view clear the air,” said Sir Roger, who has called for Mr Johnson to hand over to his deputy Dominic Raab as interim prime minister of a “war cabinet” to avoid a disruptive leadership election during the Ukraine crisis.
“If it was a one-off, he might get away with it. But if, as I assume, there are more fines and then the Sue Gray report and bad local election results on 5 May, he is in serious trouble.”
While Mr Harper was the only Tory MP to call for Mr Johnson’s resignation in the 90-minute debate following his statement, only a handful turned up in the Commons to speak in his support.
The PM made his first statement to the house since being fined over a lockdown breach
