Boris Johnson hands over WhatsApp messages directly to Covid inquiry | Health policy
Boris Johnson has bypassed the government’s attempt to keep his unredacted WhatsApp messages secret by handing them over directly to the Covid inquiry.
In a move that will further frustrate Downing Street, the former prime minister circumvented the Cabinet Office, which is seeking to hold up the process by launching legal action.
Johnson said he was “not willing to let my material become a test case for others”, given the government’s reservation that handing over Johnson’s files could mean serving ministers are forced to oblige, too.
Thus far, only messages since spring 2021 have been given to the inquiry, because Johnson said security advisers had told him to permanently turn off a previous phone when its security became compromised.
That prompted some frustration, because it meant only messages dated well after all three national pandemic lockdowns were available to the inquiry.
To allay concerns, Johnson said he wanted to test the advice never to turn on his old phone. In a letter to the inquiry’s chair, Heather Hallett, he said he had asked the Cabinet Office to help turn the device back on securely to search “for all relevant material”, which he promised to pass directly to her.
About two dozen notebooks that were also requested by Lady Hallett had been removed by the Cabinet Office, said Johnson, adding that he had asked senior Whitehall officials to “pass these to you”. If they refused, he said, he would ask for them to be returned so he could again pass them directly to the inquiry.
The move will seriously undermine the Cabinet Office’s attempt to keep Johnson’s unredacted WhatsApps under wraps, after it took the unprecedented decision to launch the legal action. A judicial review of Hallett’s powers to demand all evidence she deems potentially relevant to the inquiry will now take place, but legal experts said the government was likely to lose.
After concerns were raised by Conservatives MPs, two more Tories expressed doubt about the government’s decision to take its fight to the courts. George Freeman, the science minister, said he believed the challenge was unlikely to succeed. “I absolutely have very little doubt that the courts will find that Baroness Hallett will decide what evidence she deems relevant, and then we’ll get on with it,” he told the BBC’s Question Time show.
“I think personally it’s quite likely that the courts will rule that Baroness Hallett will decide what evidence [is relevant], but I think it’s a point worth testing.”
The former Downing Street chief of staff Gavin Barwell said the legal action should not have been launched at all. He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Friday: “We’ve already waited too long to set this inquiry up, and I think people want answers quickly. So I think from a timing point of view, it is a mistake to prolong this process.”
The Cabinet Office has argued it wants to comb through all documents requested by the Covid inquiry to remove anything that may have national security implications, or that officials deem to be “unambiguously irrelevant”. But the legal case has drawn condemnation from opposition parties and upset among families of the pandemic’s victims.
Angela Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader, said the public “deserve answers, not another cover-up”.
Rivka Gottlieb, a spokesperson for the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice group, said: “Why are the Cabinet Office standing in their way? You have to assume that they’re sitting on evidence that will devastate Rishi Sunak’s reputation and that’s more important to them than saving lives in the future.”
