Civil servants must declare links to Labour shadow ministers, say Boris Johnson allies

Civil servants must declare the meetings they have held with Labour shadow ministers, Boris Johnson’s allies have said, amid fury over the Partygate investigation.

Andrea Jenkyns, a former Tory minister, said there was an “orchestrated campaign” to ensure the former prime minister is found to have misled the Commons. She said “lines have been blurred where the civil service is concerned” and also pointed the finger at MPs within her own party who “never accepted Boris” as leader.

Nadine Dorries, a former culture secretary, separately accused mandarins of “acting inappropriately and making false claims” against Mr Johnson.

The former prime minister has been referred to the police over fresh allegations of lockdown rule-breaking after officials passed on diaries he planned to submit to the Covid inquiry.

His allies have said he is the victim of a Downing Street “witch hunt” that is designed to influence the upcoming findings of the Privileges Committee investigation.

They have been further enraged by the fact Sue Gray, who led the initial Whitehall investigation into ‘Partygate’, is to become Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff.

Ms Jenkyns, the MP for Morley and Outwood, said there was “a real hatred from the left of Boris Johnson which I haven’t seen since Thatcher’s funeral”.

She told Sky News: “I do think it’s unfair. I think lines have been blurred where the civil service is concerned, for some previous civil servants to come out and publicly say ‘I was responsible for bringing Boris Johnson down’.

“When you see, part of the inquiry, we hear that the head of ethics brought their own karaoke machine to the civil service party yet Boris got the blame for all these parties.

“So I would like to see greater transparency if the civil service have got this orchestrated campaign and they are trying to stop our immigration policy etc.

“I think we need to see more transparency with the civil service and [for] them [to] declare their interests and their relations with not only the media but with the shadow cabinet as well.”

Downfall of Boris

Sir Simon McDonald, a former permanent under secretary to the Foreign Office, played a pivotal role in the downfall of Mr Johnson last Autumn. In an interview in November he described Mr Johnson as the worst of the seven prime ministers he had served under, dating back to Margaret Thatcher.

Helen McNamara, the government’s then head of ethics, provided a karaoke machine for one of the ‘Partygate’ gatherings, Ms Gray’s investigation found.

Ms Jenkyns said that she had to “question the timing” of the decision to refer the former prime minister to the police.

She said the privileges committee did not have “really strong evidence” that he had misled the Commons over the lockdown parties in Downing Street.

“At the end of the day I’ve seen the hatred out there, the vitriol. They need to leave Boris alone now,” she said. “Nobody’s perfect without a doubt, but there has seriously been an orchestrated campaign… in my own party as well.

“Because let’s face it, most of my fellow MPs are One Nation to the left of the party. They’ve got the leader that they wanted in Rishi.

“They never accepted Boris, they never accepted Liz Truss and they’re out of sync with the party membership who are big Boris fans.”

Ms Dorries also questioned the timing of Mr Johnson’s referral to the police, suggesting there was a clear link to the privileges committee investigation.

“Anybody who thinks that just weeks before the privileges committee were about to announce the findings into the inquiry that this just happened to be discovered and found and reported, I’m afraid it’s for the birds,” she told the BBC.

“The only people who are acting inappropriately and making false claims are those who have sent these diaries off to the police and off to the privileges committee just weeks before the privileges committee was about to report on its findings.”

The privileges committee, a cross-party panel of MPs, is set to pass judgment on whether or not Mr Johnson misled the Commons by denying knowledge of any parties in No 10.

If it finds that he did it could recommend a suspension of 10 sitting days or more, which would trigger a recall petition in his Uxbridge and South Ruislip constituency.

MPs would have the final vote on whether to accept the committee’s findings.