Anum Qaisar is calling for Boris Johnson to “resign immediately” after she tackled the latest lockdown party revelations at Prime Minister’s Questions – and accused him of “the ultimate betrayal”.
The Airdrie and Shotts MP addressed Mr Johnson at yesterday’s Westminster session, which followed his admission of attending drinks in the Downing Street garden during the first COVID lockdown.
Further revelations unveiled that more social events took place the night before the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral last April during a further period of tight restrictions.
Speaking at the House of Commons, she said: “I simply ask – how does the Prime Minister think he can maintain his position and continue to issue rules and advice on COVID when he can’t follow the rules himself?”
Referring in his answer to an ongoing investigation into lockdown socialising, the Prime Minister replied: “I don’t agree with her, with the greatest respect, and she will have to wait to see whatever the enquiry concludes.”
He said this week that he had not been “warned” that the May 2020 event contravened rules on group sizes and socialising at the time, saying: “Nobody said this was something that was a breach of the COVID rules, doing something that wasn’t a work event.
"I can’t imagine why on earth it would have gone ahead or why it would have been allowed.
“I do humbly apologise to people for misjudgements that were made and if I had my time again I would not have allowed things to develop in that way.”
Ms Qaisar says her constituents are “rightly furious” about the government COVID breaches “while they were diligently following the rules”.
She told Lanarkshire Live: “The Prime Minister has demonstrated he is completely unfit for public office and has lost all credibility.
“This was the ultimate betrayal. People made massive sacrifices to defeat the virus; many died or watched loved ones die without being able to be next to them.
“No-one is believing his desperate excuses – how could the man responsible for making the rules not know what was allowed and what wasn’t?
Neighbouring representative Steven Bonnar MP had also demanded Mr Johnson resign at last week’s heated Prime Minister’s Questions, calling the Prime Minister “morally distant”.
He told how his Coatbridge and Chryston constituents had made “sacrifice after sacrifice for two years” and said they “and indeed the rest of this nation, have been treated with utter contempt”.
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