Scottish Conservative leader calls for Boris Johnson to resign over Number 10 party row

Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross has demanded the resignation of Boris Johnson over the Downing Street drinks party row.

Mr Ross claimed the prime minister’s position was “no longer tenable” following Mr Johnson’s admission that he attended a “bring your own booze” drinks event at Number 10 at the height of the UK’s first national lockdown.

“If the prime minister was there, and he accepted today that he was, then I felt he could not continue,” Mr Ross said.

“What we also heard from the prime minister today was an apology and he said, with hindsight, he would have done things differently, which for me is an acceptance from the prime minister that it was wrong.

“And therefore – I don’t want to be in this position, but I am in this position now – where I don’t think he can continue as leader of the Conservatives.”

Mr Ross revealed he had spoken to Mr Johnson on Wednesday afternoon to “set out my reasons and I explained to him my position”.

The Scottish Tory leader would not reveal how the prime minister responded and said their discussions would “remain between us”.

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But Mr Ross added that Mr Johnson “believes that he didn’t do anything wrong and he has put up a defence of his position”.

“I also have to look at the information I’ve got in front of me and stick with the position that I made quite clear yesterday that, if he did attend that party, he couldn’t continue as prime minister,” he said.

Mr Ross, who is an MP at Westminster as well as sitting in the Scottish Parliament, said there was “significant unrest and concern” among Conservatives both in London and Edinburgh about the Downing Street drinks event on 20 May, 2020.

But he predicted Mr Johnson would attempt to “tough it out” amid open speculation about his future as prime minister.

Another senior Tory MP, Sir Roger Gale, earlier told Sky News that Mr Johnson had left himself in “an impossible position” and was now facing an “exit route” from Number 10.

In an apology in the House of Commons on Wednesday lunchtime, the prime minister said his 25-minute attendance at the “bring your own booze” gathering in the Downing Street garden came because he “believed implicitly that this was a work event”.

It is understood that around 40 people – including Mr Johnson and his wife Carrie – attended in total, amid suggestions that more than 100 Downing Street staff had been invited.

Sir Roger said that the prime minister’s description of a “work event” would “stretch credibility beyond the bounds of any acceptability”.

“I’m sorry, that was a party,” the North Thanet MP told Sky News.

“In terms of the duck analogy, if it looks like a duck and it quacks, it’s probably a duck. Well, if it’s got booze and it’s got food it’s probably a party.”

Sir Roger recalled Mr Johnson’s assurance to MPs’ last month that there was “no party” in Number 10, as the prime minister faced other allegations about a Christmas bash in 2020.

“Well, I’m sorry, he attended one of them and it clearly was a party and that means that he misled the House of Commons,” Sir Roger said.

He added, for those ministers who mislead the House of Commons, that “there is really only one exit route”.

“If people have to go then they have to go, and it’s better if they go voluntarily and with dignity,” Sir Roger said.

Sir Roger previously submitted a letter of no confidence in the prime minister to Sir Graham Brady, the chair of the Conservative Party’s 1922 Committee, following the row over Dominic Cummings’s lockdown trips.

If 53 other Tory MPs also submit letters to Sir Graham, then Mr Johnson will be subject to a leadership challenge.

Asked if the prime minister could survive the latest “partygate” revelations, North Dorset MP Simon Hoare told Sky News on Wednesday: “I don’t know.”

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