Rishi Sunak has just delivered a direct rebuke of Boris Johnson over the resignation honours row. Sunak used an interview at London Tech Week to hit back at Johnson, following the omission of Nadine Dorries from Johnson’s honours list. That decision kickstarted a chain of events that led to Dorries, Johnson and Nigel Adams quitting over the weekend and sparking three by-elections. The PM was asked whether his predecessor – who criticised Sunak’s government in his resignation statement – had undermined him. He replied:
‘Boris Johnson asked me to do something that I wasn’t prepared to do because I didn’t think it was right. That was to either overrule Holac (the House of Lords appointments committee) or make promises to people. If people don’t like that then tough. When I got this job, I said I was going to do things differently because I wanted to change politics and that’s what I’m doing.’
The comments – which received a round of applause from the audience – are the most critical Sunak has been of Johnson since entering No. 10. It also suggests that rather than trying to dial down the row, Sunak wants to make his case – even if it risks further inflaming tensions in his own party. So far claims that more MPs could resign in anger at Johnson’s treatment appear to be overbaked – with Nadhim Zahawi among those to come out publicly and say they are staying put.
In his remarks this morning, Sunak is effectively saying that Holac failed to vet Dorries for a peerage and he was not willing to overrule Holac or to promise to Dorries that he would put her down for a peerage at a later date.
Some in the Tory party think Sunak ought to have done the latter, a backroom deal to avoid some of the political pain currently being played out in public. However, Sunak has made the calculation that he would rather prioritise trying to live up to the commitment he made on the steps of Downing Street to lead a government of integrity than playing to Johnson’s rules.
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