Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak are preparing to launch a legal battle over the secrets of COVID, just hours before the deadline to hand over sensitive material to the official pandemic inquiry.
Mr Johnsonprime minister during the pandemic, is fighting to prevent the Cabinet Office releasing all your unedited WhatsApp messages and journals to the Chair of the Inquiry, Baroness Hallett.
With the clock ticking towards the 4pm deadline, Baroness Hallett is demanding to see all the government’s messages, which she says are vital to the inquiry’s deliberations. covid decisions
She is said to have warned the government that failure to release material would amount to a criminal offence, a claim the government disputes, and is therefore poised to launch a legal challenge.
The government argues that handing over all ministers’ messages to the inquiry, including Mr Johnson’s, would prevent them from communicating freely in the future and that much of the material is irrelevant.
In a ruling last week, Baroness Hallett said: “All of the content of the documents to be produced are of potential relevance to the lines of inquiry I am pursuing.”
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Baroness Hallett
But the government’s opposition to handing over the WhatsApp messages and diaries in full and its threat to launch a legal challenge was strongly backed by the former Conservative leader. Sir Iain Duncan Smith.
Speaking to The Daily Telegraph, he accused Lady Hallett of “trying to be Agatha Christie” by turning the COVID inquiry into a “quiet” rather than a “what not”.
Sir Iain said: “It is completely unnecessary to go after people. They are on a fishing expedition and should stop fishing. There is enough evidence to know what went wrong.”
Johnson has claimed that publishing his diaries in full would be a breach of national security.
And now it seems that the showdown is headed for the extraordinary spectacle of a legal battle between the government and the investigation.
Mr. Sunak and the former prime minister are expected to speak this week, for the first time since last year, about their approach to the COVID investigation and also discuss the former prime minister’s controversial resignation honors list .
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Boris Johnson denies new claims
Mr. Johnson is already furious with the Cabinet Office for referring a dozen newspaper entries to the police and the Privileges Committee of MPs, which is investigating claims he lied to the House of Commons.
As a result, the agents of the Metropolitan Police and Thames Valley force are now considering whether the meetings which took place with allies in Downing Street and Checkers in May 2021 broke the COVID rules.
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The diary entries include visits to Checkers by outgoing BBC chairman Richard Sharp, the cousin of Mr. Johnson, Sam Blyth, who lent him £800,000, and fellow Tory Lord Brownlow, who financed decorations in the Downing Street flat.
Another diary entry refers to a visit to Checkers by two of Carrie Johnson’s friends, although Mr Johnson’s spokesman has insisted the event was “entirely lawful”.
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“Leave Boris Johnson alone”
In an exclusive Sky News interview at Dulles Airport, in the United States, last Friday, a defiant Mr. Johnson stated: “None of these constitute a breach of the rules during COVID. They were not during the lockdown.
“They were during other periods of the restrictions. None of them constitute a breach of the rules. None of them involve socialization. It’s total nonsense.”
Johnson’s allies also accuse Oliver Dowden, Cabinet Office minister, deputy prime minister and Sunak’s closest ally, of sanctioning “a political mess” to defame Johnson and prolong the Privileges Committee investigation.
Johnson is reported to believe Dowden “has form”, having helped trigger his downfall last year with an early-morning resignation as party chairman just hours after two disastrous by-election defeats for the Tories.
The former prime minister told Sky News: “I think it’s ridiculous that items in my diary are being picked out and handed over to the police, to the Privileges Committee, without anyone having the basic common sense to ask me what refer to these entries.”
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Johnson’s allies have also demanded a leaks investigation to catch the “rat rat” who revealed his diary entries had been passed to the police, a reference to the so-called “talk rat” who leaked an ad of blocking in November 2020.
Despite the threat of a looming legal battle, a Cabinet Office spokesman said: “We are fully committed to our obligations with the investigation into COVID-19.
“As such, a great deal of time and effort has been spent over the past 11 months to assist the investigation in a comprehensive manner.
“We will continue to provide all material relevant to the investigation, in accordance with the law, before proceedings are initiated.”
