UK Minister Resigns Over ‘Repeated Rule-Breaking’ in Downing Street During COVID-19 Lockdown

A group of police officers walk through Downing Street, in London, during a protest outside the gates on April 13, 2022. Stefan Rousseau/PA

A Conservative peer has resigned as justice minister of the UK government, saying the “repeated rule-breaking” in Downing Street during the COVID-19 lockdown is “inconsistent with the rule of law.”

David Wolfson, a member of the House of Lords who has served as a minister in the Ministry of Justice since December 2020, quit on April 13 after Prime Minister Boris Johnson, his wife Carrie, and Chancellor Rishi Sunak were fined by police for breaching CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus restrictions.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his fiancee Carrie Symonds take part in a doorstep clap in memory of Captain Sir Tom Moore outside 10 Downing Street in London on Feb. 3, 2021. Hollie Adams/Getty Images

In a letter to the prime minister, Wolfson said: “I regret that recent disclosures lead to the inevitable conclusion that there was repeated rule-breaking, and breaches of the criminal law, in Downing Street.

“I have—again, with considerable regret—come to the conclusion that the scale, context and nature of those breaches mean that it would be inconsistent with the rule of law for that conduct to pass with constitutional impunity, especially when many in society complied with the rules at great personal cost, and others were fined or prosecuted for similar, and sometimes apparently more trivial, offences.”

Wolfson said it is “not just a question of what happened in Downing Street” or Johnson’s own conduct, but also “the official response” to the so-called “partygate” scandal.

He concluded he had no option but to resign considering “my ministerial and professional obligations to support and uphold the rule of law.”

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson delivers a statement following the announcement that he and Chancellor Rishi Sunak would be fined as part of a police probe into allegations of lockdown parties, at his country residence Chequers, in Buckinghamshire, England, on April 12, 2022. Marc Ward/PA

Johnson, his wife, and Sunak were issued “fixed penalty notices” by the Metropolitan Police for attending a birthday gathering for the prime minister in Number 10 Downing Street in June 2020.

Both Johnson and Sunak have apologised for breaking lockdown rules but have refused to resign.

In response to renewed calls from opposition parties for him to resign, Johnson said: “I think the best thing I can do now is, having settled the fine, is focus on the job in hand. That’s what I’m going to do.”

Johnson has been plagued by a series of damaging allegations of parties and other gatherings held in his official residence at No. 10 Downing Street and other government departments in Whitehall at the height of the pandemic, in violation of lockdown rules written by the government.

Johnson has faced repeated calls from opposition parties for him to resign over the scandal.

Calls for his resignation also came from his own backbench Conservative MPs, but in recent weeks, the war in Ukraine has seen Tory MPs rally around their leader.

PA Media contributed to this report.