The Conservative MP for Weston-super-Mare has resigned as the Prime Minister's anti-corruption tsar ahead of tonight's no confidence vote in Boris Johnson's leadership, and has called for him to resign. John Penrose announced that he would be stepping down as the Anti-Corruption Champion in an open letter, in which he accused the PM of breaking the ministerial code - an act which the code currently says is a resigning matter.
Johnson will face a no confidence vote from Tory MPs today at 6pm after enough MPs sent letters to Sir Graham Brady to trigger the vote. And referring to a letter written by Johnson after the Sue Gray report was published, Penrose said that Johnson's response suggested that he had broken the code.
He says that Gray's report showed that Johnson had "failures of leadership and judgement" and that this breached the ministerial code, and he accused Johnson of failing to address this.
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And he said the report showed that he had breached a "fundamental principle" of the code and called for him to step aside as PM. In his letter, Penrose wrote: "I will always be grateful to you for getting Brexit done after the country voted to leave in the EU Referendum, for leading us to victory in the 2019 General Election, and for getting the country out of covid lockdown as early as was safely possible last year.
"But I hope you will understand that none of these can excuse or justify a fundamental breach of the Ministerial Code. As a result, I'm afraid it wouldn't be honourable or right for me to remain as your Anti-Corruption Champion after reaching this conclusion, nor for you to remain as Prime Minister either."
Penrose's wife, baroness Dido Harding, ran the government's Covid-19 test-and-trace programme. The £22bn venture was marred with setbacks and controversy including IT problems.
If Johnson loses tonight's vote, he will be forced to step aside as Prime Minister. To remain in office, he will need 180 MPs to vote in his favour.
