Amid ‘meltdown’ on Downing Street, fifth Boris Johnson aide quits

She followed four other top aides who quit Downing Street on Thursday night as the fallout from a scandal dubbed “Partygate” continues to engulf the British government and raise questions about Johnson’s leadership.

“Meltdown in Downing Street,” said the Daily Mail in its front page headline on Friday. “Will the last one to leave please turn out the lights,” the paper asked, a nod to a famous headline by the Sun newspaper during the 1992 election.

Johnson’s office is under investigation for a string of gatherings over the past two years that are alleged to have violated the government’s own coronavirus restrictions. A report published this week by senior civil servant Sue Gray found that there were “failures of leadership and judgment” at 10 Downing Street. The London Metropolitan Police are looking into 12 of the most serious alleged breaches.

Ministers were describing some of the departures to a clearing out after the Gray report, with Energy Minister Greg Hands telling Sky News that the personnel changes were a result of “the prime minister taking charge.”

“The prime minister was absolutely clear on Monday that there would be changes at the top of Number 10 and that is what he has delivered,” he said. “The Sue Gray report update said that there were failings at the top of the operation.”

One of the staffers who announced on Thursday that he was leaving has been directly implicated in Partygate. Martin Reynolds, the prime minister’s principal private secretary, was responsible for an email encouraging Downing Street staffers to “bring your own booze” to a party on May 20, 2020 — at a time when the public was banned by law from meeting up with more than one person outside households.

Also announcing their resignations were Communications Director Jack Doyle, Chief of Staff Dan Rosenfield and Policy Director Munira Mirza.

Mirza, a longtime ally of Johnson, made a point that she was leaving on principle. In a blistering resignation letter, Mirza she said Johnson needed to apologize for an “inappropriate and partisan” slur of opposition Labour Party leader Keir Starmer.

In Parliament on Monday, when he was supposed to be addressing Gray’s report, Johnson accused Starmer, a former director of public prosecutions, of failing to prosecute Jimmy Savile, a television personality who was revealed after his death in 2011 to be one of Britain’s worst child abusers. There is no evidence to back up this allegation.

Johnson later walked back from his comments but did not offer an apology to Starmer.

Rishi Sunak, seen as a possible successor to Johnson if he is ousted, was asked about the Savile comments during a news conference on Thursday.

“Being honest, I wouldn’t have said it,” he responded.

It’s unclear if the clearing out of Johnson’s inner circle will be enough to revive his premiership.

Nikki da Costa, a former legislative affairs director at Downing Street suggested that rebuilding the inner team wouldn’t be easy. The operation at Number 10, she wrote, was “demoralised, already quite dysfunctional, with remaining good people neutered by the hierarchical, often ego driven, culture that has developed. They can’t just bounce back, and they are also dealing with this and sudden loss of colleagues.”

To trigger a leadership challenge in the Conservative Party, 54 Conservative members of Parliament would have to submit letters of no confidence to the chair of the 1922 Committee, made up of backbench party members.

At least seven lawmakers have publicly said they have submitted letters, but more may have done so privately.