LONDON: A senior British minister said on Wednesday that Prime Minister Boris Johnson did not set out to break COVID laws with malice and is mortified after he was fined by police for attending a gathering during lockdown, as calls mounted for Johnson to quit.
Johnson, his wife Carrie and finance minister Rishi Sunakwere fined on Tuesday for breaching laws the government imposed to curb COVID-19, drawing a wave of condemnation, including from the families of those who died alone during the pandemic.
Senior ministers have rallied round Johnson while a numberof previous critics in his Conservative Party have said now wasnot the time for a change in leadership given the crisis inUkraine.
However, David Wolfson, a junior justice minister, didresign on Wednesday, saying “recent disclosures lead to theinevitable conclusion that there was repeated rule-breaking, and breaches of the criminal law”.
The prime minister initially told parliament that no partiestook place. But police are investigating 12 gatherings after aninternal inquiry found his staff had enjoyed alcohol-fuelledparties when social mixing was all but banned in the country.
Johnson has since said he attended some of the events,raising the prospect that he could face further fines. He saidon Tuesday that it had not occurred to him that he was in breach of the rules, rejecting calls for his resignation.
“I’m not saying that the prime minister isn’t a flawedindividual. We’re all flawed in different ways,” transportminister Grant Shapps told Sky News. “The question is didsomebody set out to do these things with malice?”
UK PM, finance minister face calls to quit over lockdown fines
“The prime minister is mortified about it, but I thinkthere’s a big job for him to get on and do on behalf of theBritish people, on behalf of the world fighting this cruel war.”
The revelations about boozy Downing Street parties provokedresignation calls from Conservative lawmakers earlier this year. However, that pressure largely abated with the war in Ukraine.
Johnson won a landslide election in 2019 on a promise tocomplete Britain’s exit from the European Union, but hispremiership has been marked by a series of dramatic events, from suspending parliament over a Brexit impasse and his own experience of COVID.
His fine is believed to represent the first time a Britishleader has been found to have broken the law while in office.
Sunak, a former banker who became chancellor on the eve ofthe pandemic, took seven hours to release a statement in which he apologised, prompting a report in the Times newspaper that he had considered quitting.
One lawmaker in Johnson’s Conservative Party said onWednesday that the prime minister should go. “I don’t think the PM can survive or should survive breaking the rules he put in place,” Nigel Mills told the BBC. “He’s been fined, I don’tthink his position is tenable.”