5 Downing Street Aides Resign Within 24 Hours

A light over the 10 Downing Street door in London on Feb. 3, 2022. Kirsty O’Connor/PA

Four senior aides in Downing Street have resigned on Thursday, followed by a junior aide on Friday.

Munira Mirza, the head of policy at Number 10, was the first to quit on Thursday over Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s failure to apologise about his ‘scurrilous’ remarks toward the opposition leader, Labour’s Sir Keir Starmer.

Mirza’s departure was followed on Thursday by the resignations of Jack Doyle, Downing Street director of communications; Martin Reynolds, Johnson’s principal private secretary; and Dan Rosenfield, No 10 chief of staff.

A junior aide, education policy specialist Elena Narozanski, resigned on Friday morning.

According to the Daily Mail, where Doyle previously worked, Doyle told his colleagues that the past weeks had “taken a terrible toll” on his family life, and stressed that he had always intended to leave the job after two years.

Boris Johnson aides leaving Downing Street. PA Graphics

Mirza’s role was swiftly filled by Conservative MP Andrew Griffith, while No 10 said it was very sorry to lose the long-time ally of Johnson.

Downing Street said the departure of Doyle, Reynolds, and Rosenfield had been decided before Mirza’s surprise resignation by “mutual” consent, and that Reynolds and Rosenfield will stay on until replacements are found. Reynolds is expected to return to a role at the Foreign Office, a No 10 spokeswoman said.

“The departures of those three individuals were agreed with the prime minister ahead of Munira’s departure yesterday. Those were mutual decisions,” Johnson’s spokesman said on Friday, before clarifying the same doesn’t apply to Narozanski, who was reportedly loyal to Mirza.

Doyle, Reynolds, and Rosenfield’s job security have previously been speculated as they were embroiled in the “Partygate” crisis in Downing Street, where a series of rule-breaking parties and gatherings allegedly took place during the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus lockdowns.

Doyle reportedly attended at least two of the gatherings, while Roynalds was dubbed “Party Marty” after it emerged he sent a “bring your own booze” garden party invitation to around 100 staff members in May 2020. Rosenfield was reportedly aware of a number of the gatherings. The No 10 chief of staff was also blamed by some after senior civil servant Sue Gray criticised “failures of leadership and judgment” by parts of Number 10 and the Cabinet Office in her report on the inquiry into the gatherings.

Huw Merriman, Conservative chairman of the Transport Select Committee, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the prime minister should either shape up or ship out, but energy minister Greg Hands told the same programmed that Johnson had been “absolutely clear on Monday that there would be changes at the top of No 10 and that is what he has delivered.”

Johnson has rallied Downing Street staff following the departure of the four senior aides, telling them “change is good,” his official spokesman confirmed.

The prime minister “reflected on the privilege of working in No 10 in order to deliver for the British people and reiterated his and No 10’s commitment to serving the public by keeping people safe, improving lives, and spreading opportunity,” he said.

“As he reiterated to the team today, there is an important job to do, the public expects us to be focused on it, whether it is the situation in Ukraine, recovering from the pandemic or, as the Chancellor was setting out yesterday, on issues such as cost of living.”

Undated photo showing Prime Minister Boris Johnson leaves 10 Downing Street in London. Jonathan Brady/PA

Johnson has been under pressure to resign over the partying allegations by opposition parties and some of his own backbenchers.

So far, 13 Conservative MPs have publicly called for Johnson to step down. It’s unclear how many have sent letters of no confidence to Sir Graham Brady—chairman of the 1922 committee, a committee of all backbench Conservative MPs.

It takes 54 letters to trigger a vote, and 180 votes of no confidence to oust Johnson.

Jimmy Savile Remarks

Two government ministers have also distanced themselves from Johnson’s remarks about Starmer.

In a heated Jan. 31 exchange in the House of Commons on Gray’s report, Johnson accused the opposition leader, a former chief state prosecutor, of using his time for “prosecuting journalists and failing to prosecute Jimmy Savile,” one of the UK’s most egregious sex offenders, before his death in 2011.

As director of public prosecutions, Starmer apologised in 2013 on behalf of the Crown Prosecution Service for failing to prosecute Savile. But there’s no evidence that he had any personal role in the failure.

Johnson later clarified that he’s comment was referring to the former prosecutor’s public apology, but stopped short at apologising to Starmer.

Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak, one of the apparent potential successors to Johnson, told reporters on Thursday that he wouldn’t have made such comment.

“Being honest, I wouldn’t have said it. And I’m glad that the prime minister clarified what he meant,” Sunak said.

Pressed on whether he thought Johnson should’ve apologized, the chancellor said it was “a question for the prime minister.”

Health Secretary Sajid Javid on Friday said Starmer “did a good job” as the director of public prosecutions and deserved “absolute respect” for it.

“But the prime minister has also come out and clarified those remarks, and that is important,” he told Sky News.

Alexander Zhang and PA contributed to this report.