#SackJacobReesMogg is trending as the Tory politician has become the first Cabinet minister to be dragged into an outside interests row.
The House of Commons leader may have breached parliamentary rules after not declaring £6 million in personal loans from his Cayman Islands-linked company, according to The Mail on Sunday.
Anna Mikhailova, the journalist who broke the story, said he argued the money was used “primarily” to buy and refurbish his London townhouse.
But Mikhailova revealed Rees-Mogg would not say what the rest of the money was for, “despite repeated questions”.
A flurry of reactions have flooded Twitter, with one user saying that when this happened in the past, “the cabinet minister resigned or was sacked”.
“This is corruption and Rees-Mogg needs to go,” he added.
And law professor Paul Bernal commented: “Apart from anything else, £6 million? Let’s not pretend this is normal.”
Daily Mirror political correspondent Rachel Wearmouth warned the revelations will not “end well” for Rees-Mogg.
Wearmouth highlighted a Tory MP said Rees-Mogg should go – and reminded readers that the cabinet minister was “at the forefront of arguing for Owen Paterson” and for “ripping up standards rules”
Her views were echoed by her editor Pippa Crerar, who said Rees-Mogg led the government’s recent attempts to rip up the Commons’ standards rules.
It comes as last week Labour singled out Rees-Mogg in criticism towards the role he played in getting Tory MPs to vote for a motion which would have protected former Tory MP Owen Paterson from suspension.
Paterson was found guilty of taking hundreds of thousands of pounds in lobbying cash.
Despite this, MPs voted by 250 to 232, with a majority of 18, to approve an amendment to consider reforming the House of Commons standards system, before being forced into an embarrassing U-turn following public backlash.
Tories were ordered not to back the cross-party Standards Committee’s call for the North Shropshire MP to be suspended from Parliament for 30 sitting days after it found he repeatedly lobbied ministers and officials for two companies paying him more than £100,000 per year.
But, faced with a stinging backlash, the government U-turned on the measures, with Jacob Rees-Mogg admitting the move had “created a certain amount of controversy”.
The Commons leader said the vote had “conflated the individual case with the general concern” that there was not an appeals process for MPs unhappy with the punishment they faced.
Angela Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader, said the Tories had voted to “give a green light to corruption” after MPs lined up to protect Paterson.
Related: Kwarteng says he ‘feels no shame’ over Paterson… hours before U-turn
