Partygate fines: UK cannot have a criminal, Boris Johnson, as Prime Minister – Ian Murray MP

While people watched their dying loved ones through a window, the Prime Minister, the Chancellor, and their staff partied.

Boris Johnson should resign over the Partygate affair and Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross should call for him to do so (Picture: Daniel Leal-Olivas/WPA pool/Getty Images)

Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak broke the law and, if either had a shred of decency, they’d have resigned already.

Being caught up in scandal is par for the course for Johnson. However for Sunak, the ‘Mr Clean façade’ is starting to tarnish big time.

Within days, Sunak has been found guilty of breaking Covid restrictions and it’s been uncovered his family may have benefitted from tax-reduction schemes while he inflicts the largest tax burden in 70 years on working people.

Even by this government’s standards, it’s nothing short of reprehensible. The old saying was “lies, damned lies and statistics”. Now it's “lies, damned lies and Boris Johnson”. We already knew he was a moral vacuum, but now we know he did indeed stoop lower than a snake’s belly.

The public made unimaginable and heart-breaking sacrifices during the pandemic while the government was partying. There are so many stories of guilt from not seeing relatives to missing funerals, weddings, and births.

I can guarantee my parliamentary colleagues, in all parties, can recall story after story sent to them by constituents who were simply following the law.

So, every Conservative MP must now do right by the people they represent and call for these lawbreakers to go.

Scottish Tory Leader Douglas Ross should have led by example and resubmitted his letter to the 1922 Committee calling for a vote of no confidence in Johnson when this news broke. Using the Ukraine crisis as an excuse not to is cowardice, plain and simple.

His blind loyalty to Johnson is deeply insulting to thousands of Scots who abided by the rules despite considerable personal hardship.

Ross is giving explicit approval to the criminality of the two most powerful men in the UK and the first PM to be a formal criminal.

The Tory party is not fit to govern and not fit to represent the people of Britain.

If he wants to maintain even an ounce of credibility, Ross must call for the resignations of the Prime Minister and Chancellor immediately.

The Tories think it’s one rule from them and another for everyone else, and this mantra couldn’t have been made clearer than by the fact that Sunak held a US green card while an MP and Chancellor.

British families are struggling, and the man to blame can’t confirm whether his family is dodging tax or not.

Sunak must now urgently declare how much he and his family have saved on their own tax bill at the same time he was putting taxes up for millions of working families and choosing to leave them £2,620 a year worse off.

Lying and tax dodging are endemic to Johnson’s government.

So, this May we can use the council elections to send a message to them, to say that, unlike Nicola Sturgeon’s SNP, we won’t stand idly by and watch them trash this country. Labour can more than oppose the Tories, we can replace them.

The facts are clear: the Prime Minister and Chancellor are guilty of criminality. No one is above the law. Britain deserves better, and they must go and be replaced by a Labour government.

Ian Murray is Labour MP for Edinburgh South

A message from the Editor:

Thank you for reading this article. We're more reliant on your support than ever as the shift in consumer habits brought about by coronavirus impacts our advertisers.

If you haven't already, please consider supporting our trusted, fact-checked journalism by taking out a digital subscription.