UK: Two senior government ministers resign

(CNN) — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was dealt a huge blow on Tuesday when two of his top ministers announced their resignations, saying they could no longer work for a government mired in scandal.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak and Health Secretary Sajid Javid both announced they were quitting in letters posted to Twitter within minutes of each other on Tuesday evening.

“The public rightly expect government to be conducted properly, competently and seriously,” Sunak said in his resignation letter. “I recognise this may be my last ministerial job, but I believe these standards are worth fighting for and that is why I am resigning.”

“In preparation for our proposed joint speech on the economy next week, it has become clear to me that our approaches are fundamentally too different,” Sunak added in the letter. “I am sad to be leaving Government but I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that we cannot continue like this.”

Javid wrote that “it has been an enormous privilege to serve in this role, but I regret that I can no longer continue in good conscience.” Javid added that the vote of confidence in the prime minister last month “was a moment for humility, grip and new direction.”

“I regret to say, however, that it is clear to me that this situation will not change under your leadership — and you have therefore lost my confidence too,” Javid wrote.

The most immediate controversy facing Johnson is Downing Street’s handling of last week’s resignation of deputy chief whip Chris Pincher, who stepped down from his post last Thursday amid allegations he had groped two guests at a private dinner the night before. While he did not admit the allegations directly, Pincher said in a letter to Johnson that “last night I drank far too much” and “embarrassed myself and other people.”

Downing Street has struggled to explain why Pincher was in government in the first place, amid a wave of revelations about his previous alleged conduct.

When those reports emerged, Downing Street initially denied the Prime Minister knew anything specific about them. Then, Johnson’s team said he had known about the historical allegations, but that they had been “resolved.”

When it emerged that one of the previously unreported allegations against Pincher had been upheld, Johnson’s spokesperson explained that “resolved” could mean that it had been upheld.

Then on Tuesday morning, Simon McDonald, the former top civil servant at the Foreign Office, revealed that Johnson had been briefed in person about the outcome of an investigation into Pincher’s conduct.

Minutes before Sunak and Javid announced their resignations, Johnson acknowledged it “was a mistake” to appoint Pincher to his government.

UK opposition leader Keir Starmer said it was “clear” that the government was “collapsing”.

“Tory cabinet ministers have known all along who this Prime Minister is. They have been his cheerleaders throughout this sorry saga. Backing him when he broke the law. Backing him when he lied repeatedly. Backing him when he mocked the sacrifices of the British people,” the Labour Party leader said in a statement released after the two resignations.

For months Johnson has been facing a barrage of criticism over his conduct and that of his government, including illegal, lockdown-breaking parties thrown in his Downing Street offices for which he and others were fined.

Johnson has faced numerous other scandals that have hit his standing in the polls — despite his 80-seat landslide victory just two-and-a-half years ago. These include accusations of using donor money inappropriately to pay for a refurbishment of his Downing Street home and whipping MPs to protect a colleague who had breached lobbying rules.

Last month, he survived a confidence vote, but the final count of his lawmakers who rebelled against him was higher than his supporters expected: 41% of his own parliamentary party refused to back him.

But while he managed to win the confidence vote, he suffered a further blow late last month when his party lost two parliamentary by-elections in a single night, raising new questions about his leadership.

According to an Ipsos UK survey conducted between 22-29th June, Johnson’s Conservative Party is at its lowest level recorded in more than a decade when it comes to being seen as “fit to govern”. Just 21% of respondents said it is fit to govern — the lowest number for either the Conservatives or Labour since Ipsos started tracking this metric in 2011.