That always happens with Boris Johnson. What has become a major legal challenge for the current British government is the opportunity for the former Prime Minister to settle accounts with his enemies. And as on other occasions, fraud. Rishi Sunak’s executive branch has decided to refuse to hand over the WhatsApp messages Johnson exchanged with scientific advisers and other members of his cabinet to the independent commission investigating the public management of the pandemic, chaired by former Justice Heather Hallett. The delivery deadline ended this Thursday at four o’clock in the afternoon (five o’clock in the afternoon, Spanish peninsular time). Twenty minutes later, Downing Street issued a statement setting out the reasons for its refusal to extradite the Wesaps. “The Cabinet Office [encargada de coordinar la tarea del primer ministro y el resto de ministerios] has asked permission to conduct a judicial review of the order [de la comisión]. “We regret this action and reaffirm that we will continue to cooperate fully with the Commission both during the time the courts are clarifying the jurisdictional issue we have raised and afterwards,” the text reads.
It is the first time a UK government has challenged the role of an independent commission of inquiry in court. Sunak’s team believes they have valid arguments to oppose the delivery of WhatsApp messages. They believe this would set a serious precedent for the task of future governments. At the time, they replied to Judge Hallett that many of the messages contained “undoubtedly irrelevant information”, in some cases relating to ministers’ personal affairs. Downing Street has offered to let its own solicitors decide what material to provide and what not. “[La petición] it is an unlawful interference in aspects of government work unrelated to the pandemic. And an interference with legitimate expectations for privacy and the protection of personal data,” argued the Cabinet Office.
The judge believes that it should be the commission that decides on the relevance of the texts and a large majority of legal experts support her reasoning and predict a failure of the government in court. “If he concludes that any part of this material should be released because it is in the public interest, I very much doubt the courts will overrule his decision,” former Supreme Court Justice Jonathan Sumption told the BBC.
Johnson’s maneuver
The former Prime Minister, through his spokesman, has made public his request for the Sunak government to deliver all the messages required by the judge and sent them to Downing Street. On the same Thursday, Johnson wrote to the judge saying, contrary to Downing Street’s legal criteria, he was “delighted to deliver both the requested WhatsApps and the newspapers”.
Shortly thereafter, however, it was revealed that the messages sent by Johnson only covered the period from May 2021 (a year into the pandemic, when it was already clear that an independent commission would investigate the government’s management). All previous texts ran on a mobile device, which the former prime minister had to do without for security reasons after it became known that his cell phone number had been circulating on the Internet for 15 years. He has not used this device since then. Now he has asked the government’s computer technicians to try to salvage the contents, but his maneuver has managed to get Sunak onto a rock and into a hard place for now.
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During the pandemic, the current Prime Minister was Johnson’s Treasury Secretary and he took a very belligerent stance on the lockdowns due to the damage they were doing to the country’s economy. Johnson does not forgive Sunak for contributing to the political downfall of what was then the most popular politician in recent British history. With his game, Johnson clouds the ground and endangers his successor.
“After thirteen years of the Tory scandal, this latest pretext is just a tactic to undermine the task of the commission of inquiry,” lamented Labor Opposition No. 2 Angela Rayner. “Citizens deserve answers and not another attempt to cover up the truth.”
The organization Justice for the Families of Victims of Covid-19 has called the government’s maneuver “absolutely obscene”. “Why is the entire Cabinet Office obstructing? “There is no choice but to assume that they are trying to hide evidence that would damage Rishi Sunak’s reputation and that this is more important to them than saving lives in the future,” said organization spokeswoman Rivka Gottlieb.
Sunak, who is attending the summit of the European Political Community, which brought together fifty heads of state and government, in the Moldovan capital, assured that his government “had the confidence to defend its position”. “It’s really important that we learn the lessons from the pandemic to be better prepared going forward and we will do so consistently but also with transparency and honesty,” the Prime Minister promised.
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