Several Welsh leaders call for Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak to resign after partygate fines

  • Report by Adrian Masters

Multiple Welsh party leaders have said Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Chancellor Rishi Sunak should resign after both were fined for attending lockdown parties at Number 10.

The First Minister and Plaid Cymru and Lib Dem leaders have all called for the Prime Minister to quit.

Mark Drakeford said: "You can’t be a law-maker and a law-breaker. The Prime Minister has denied time and again that he did anything wrong."He has clearly broken the laws he made and asked people to follow. People are angry and upset.

"I don’t see how someone in this position can carry on."

Welsh Liberal Democrat Leader Jane Dodds said Welsh Conservative Leader Andrew RT Davies and Welsh Secretary Simon Hart “must show a backbone” and join the other party leaders in Wales in calling for resignations.

“Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak have broken the law and repeatedly lied, they must resign from their positions at once,” said Jane Dodds MS.

“While people in Wales were playing by the rules at great personal expense, those in charge thought they were above the law”.

She added: “No Welsh Conservative MP should be backing the Chancellor or Prime Minister staying in post.”

Andrew RT Davies responded to the partygate fines on Twitter, writing: “The issuing of a fixed penalty notice is for the Prime Minister and the Chancellor to address. People will understandably want to hear from them about today’s events.”

However, the Conservative leader did not condemn the Prime Minsters actions.

He instead drew reference to the war in Ukraine, tweeting how the country “needs a strong UK ally supporting their noble fight against Putin's aggression” and that it is important the Prime Minister “addresses today's events but continues his steadfast leadership in supporting Ukraine in their hour of need.”

Simon Hart, the UK Government's Secretary of State for Wales, has publicly backed the Prime Minister and the Chancellor, saying he felt the pair's actions had now been "appropriately dealt with".

The Chancellor, the PM and his wife Carrie Johnson are among 30 others who were notified this morning that they would be receiving fixed penalty notices from the Metropolitan Police for attending illegal parties during lockdown.

Plaid Cymru Westminster leader Liz Saville Roberts MP says she is “appalled” that people in Wales followed the rules and made sacrifices, while parties were happening at Number 10.

In a statement, she expressed her opinion that if Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak “have any honour, they will both resign.”

Their judgement “can only be attributed to an arrogant sense of exceptionalism and a belief in their own entitlement, regardless of their responsibilities as leaders”, she said.

Boris Johnson is the first serving Prime Minister to be sanctioned for breaking the law.

More than 30 partygate fines were announced this morning. The number of confirmed Covid breaches on government premises now stands at more than 50.

A No 10 spokesman said: “The Met Police have now explained that the FPN issued to the PM will be in relation to the following incident:

"On June 19 2020 at the Cabinet Room, 10 Downing Street, between 1400 and 1500 you participated in a gathering of two or more people indoors in the Cabinet Room at 10 Downing Street.”

A spokesperson for Mrs Johnson added: “In the interests of transparency, Mrs Johnson can confirm she has been notified that she will receive a Fixed Penalty Notice. She has not yet received any further details about the nature of the FPN.”