UK health and finance ministers resigned in protest against Boris Johnson

Two leading British ministers, including the Financeresigned from their positions on Tuesday, in protest against the Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnsonshaken by a series of scandals.

the minister of HealthSajid Javid and that of FinanceRishi Sunak, announced their decision within minutes of each other, saying they had lost hope of a break from a culture of tolerance for scandals that has kept Johnson on the defensive for months.

The apologies presented hours earlier by Johnson for having appointed Chris Pincher to an important position, a conservative leader who resigned last week after acknowledging that he groped two men while intoxicated, one of them a deputy, were not enough for the two resigners. .

The government initially claimed that Johnson was not aware of similar behavior by Pincher on previous occasions.

But that argument fell apart on Tuesday, when a former Johnson collaborator revealed that the head of government was informed in 2019, when he was foreign minister, that Pincher had already been involved in such an incident.

“The population has a legitimate expectation of a properly conducted, competent and serious government,” Sunak wrote in his resignation letter.

“I admit that this may be my last ministerial post, but I think these are values ​​worth fighting for and that is why I am resigning,” added the former finance minister.

“It is clear to me that this situation will not change under his leadership and consequently he has lost my confidence,” said the resigning Minister of Health.

The departure of Pincher, who was in charge of disciplining the Conservative caucus in Parliament, joins other similar cases in the Conservative Party in recent months.

In mid-May a deputy suspected of rape was arrested and later released on bail.

In April, another lawmaker resigned for viewing on-camera porn on his mobile phone. And a former deputy was sentenced in May to 18 months in prison for sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl.

The Johnson administration has also been rocked by the Christmas party scandal. Downing Street (the “Partygate”) held despite COVID restrictions during the pandemic.

Overcast skies for Johnson

Johnson survived a no-confidence motion last month by rebel Conservatives, and that experience should have given him the opportunity to show “humility, firmness and [emprender] a new path,” Javid wrote.

The 58-year-old prime minister still faces a parliamentary investigation into whether he lied in his defense about Partygate.

The erosion of his image resulted in defeats for the Conservatives in two by-elections at the end of June, one of them in a historic Tory fiefdom that passed to Labour.

This political crisis adds to the difficulties that the country faces in adapting to its exit from the European Union (EU) in 2020, with tensions with the block of 27 around the land border between the Republic of Ireland and the British province of Northern Ireland.

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