Hot take: Telegraph says Downing Street party is ‘Brexit revenge’

The Telegraph bagged the ‘hottest take’ of the Partygate fiasco after it pinned the blame on Remoaners for exacting revenge on the prime minister.

Historian Tim Stanley said hundreds of opposition politicians have been “looking for error” to hang on Boris Johnson since we left the EU.

He added that for many on the Left, the issue of Downing Street rule-breaking during the height of lockdown isn’t “just about Covid – It’s about Brexit”, much to the bewilderment of many on social media.

‘Position untenable”

The prime minister has said it is a matter for Sue Gray, the senior civil servant who is investigating a series of reported parties in Downing Street and elsewhere in Whitehall in the course of 2020 to determine what happened.

However Conservative MPs warned that such a position was simply unsustainable as Mr Johnson must know whether he was there or not.

Backbencher Nigel Mills warned that any senior figure who willingly attended the event could not have a position where they were responsible for setting Covid-19 policy.

“It is utterly untenable, we have seen people resign for far less than that. If the Prime Minister knowingly attended a party, I can’t see how he can survive,” he told BBC News.

“I don’t think we need an inquiry to work out whether the Prime Minister was there. He knows whether he was there or not. Just come out and say what happened.

“If he was there he better try a hugely fulsome apology and see if the country will buy it but I’m not sure they will.”

Anger

His comments echoed the leader of the Scottish Tories Douglas Ross who again warned that Mr Johnson could not carry on in No 10 if he was found to have misled Parliament.

Sir Charles Walker, the vice chairman of the Conservative backbench 1922 Committee, said there was a lot of anger over what had happened and said the Prime Minister urgently needed to rebuild public trust.

“I think the Prime Minister needs to spend the next six months restoring trust in No 10 and making some good and strong decisions. I think that is the challenge for him,” he told Channel 4 News.

Jack Peat

Jack is a business and economics journalist and the founder of The London Economic (TLE). He has contributed articles to VICE, Huffington Post and Independent and is a published author. Jack read History at the University of Wales, Bangor and has a Masters in Journalism from the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.