‘For God’s sake, go’: Tory MPs Christian Wakeford, David Davis turn on Boris Johnson
Conservative MP Christian Wakeford dramatically crosses the floor while former senior minister David Davis draws on tumultuous time in British history to urge Boris Johnson to quit.
In a dramatic day in Westminster, a former senior minister has drawn upon some of the most tumultuous moments in British history to tell Boris Johnson “for God’s sake go”, while a Tory MP defected to Labour.
As the government announced the scrapping of Covid-19 measures next week, with masks ditched and a work from home edict abandoned, a bruised Mr Johnson was scrambling to hold onto his leadership.
A hostile parliament on Tuesday continued to pressure Mr Johnson on drunken staff parties at 10 Downing Street amid revelations alcohol was wheeled in in a suitcase at a time the country was in its most severe coronavirus lockdown.
Mr Johnson, who said he didn’t realise the BYO gathering in his Downing Street backyard in May 2020 wasn’t a legally entitled work event, stared down the “Pork Pie Plot” instigated by MPs from “Red Wall” constituencies in the north of the country who have been attempting to bring about a leadership challenge.
It is unclear how many MPs have submitted letters of no confidence in the prime minister, but 54 are required by the party before a leadership challenge can begin.
But the fury directed at the prime minister appeared to temporarily dissipate when the Bury South MP Christian Wakeford, who has a majority in his electorate of several hundred, dramatically left the Conservative party and crossed the floor.
What followed was extraordinary. David Davis, the former Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union and one of the most experienced Tory politicians, drew a wave of gasps around the chamber when he told Mr Johnson: “I expect my leaders to shoulder the responsibility for the actions they take. Yesterday he did the opposite of that. So, I will remind him of a quotation which may be familiar to his ear: Leopold Amery to Neville Chamberlain.
“‘You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. In the name of God, go’.”
Mr Johnson said he didn’t know what Mr Davis was talking about. He added: “What I can tell him – I don’t know what quotation he is alluding to – what I can tell him is and I think have told this House repeatedly, I take full responsibility for everything done in this Government and throughout the pandemic.”
Mr Davis’s quote referred to Sir Leo Amery’s objection to Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement policies in May 1940 that saw Winston Churchill become prime minister just days later.
But Sir Leo had been mirroring similar words from Oliver Cromwell nearly five centuries earlier in April 1653 when he effectively closed parliament.
Mr Johnson tried to refocus attention away form himself and back to the government’s handling of coronavirus and the big announcement which has loosened most legal requirements around the virus.
“This government has got the big things right,’’ he said, announcing mandatory mask wearing is to be abandoned, including immediately for schoolchildren.
In the UK, the seven-day average is currently 93,210 cases per day, a substantial reduction from a December 29 peak of almost 220,000 cases.
“But it’s not the end of the road and we shouldn’t see this as the finish line because we cannot eradicate this virus and its future variants,: Health secretary Sajid Javid said.
“Instead we must learn to live with Covid in the same way we have to live with flu.”
He said effective immediately, the government had ended its guidance on working from home, and from next Thursday, mandatory certifications detailing vaccinations and positive tests will end. Also next Thursday, rules around mask-wearing will be loosened to a “suggestion” that they are worn in enclosed places and where people come into contact they don’t usually encounter.
The government is still encouraging vaccination but there is pressure on the government to abandon a previously announced policy that health care workers have to be fully vaccinated.
Mr Sajid was quizzed about his support for the prime minister. He said he understood the depth of feeling about the issue as he had stayed away from his mother, who lives alone, throughout lockdown, and he couldn’t attend a close friend’s funeral.
“It wasn’t easy but it was the right thing to do,’’ he said, before adding: “I think it’s right that we’re waiting for the report and when that is completed and the investigation establishes the facts that the Prime Minister will come back and answer further questions. I fully support the Prime Minister.”
Mr Johnson has also been criticised from within Tory ranks for following wildly inaccurate modelling by Cambridge University, which forecast 4,000 daily deaths, to invoke the harsh second national lockdown in late 2020.
Steve Baker, one of the strident Brexiteer MPs, has called for an office of research integrity within the Cabinet to challenge the data.
“The reality is the Prime Minister was shown a terrifying model which was subsequently proven to be widely incorrect but he took away freedoms from tens of millions on that basis.
“It is monstrous that millions of people were locked down, effectively under house arrest, their businesses destroyed, their children prevented from getting an education.
“The situation is now perfectly plain that even our most basic liberties can be taken away by the stroke of a pen, if a minister has been shown sufficiently persuasive modelling that tells them there is trouble ahead.”
More recently government modelling showed there would be 10,000 hospitalisations from Omicron, which has proven to be highly inaccurate.
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