LONDON: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was fighting on Friday to shore up his authority after a senior aide resigned over his false claim that the leader of the opposition Labour Party failed to prosecute a notorious child sex abuser.

Johnson, who in 2019 won the biggest Conservative majority since Margaret Thatcher, has repeatedly refused to resign over reports that he and some of his staff attended Downing Street parties during Covid-19 lockdowns.

Those revelations raised questions about Johnson’s often chaotic style of leadership and have led to the greatest threat to him since he took office. They follow a series of other scandals.

Johnson admitted that problems needed to be fixed at the heart of Downing Street, which serves as both his home and the nerve centre of the British state.

Munira Mirza, his head of policy who had worked with him for 14 years, resigned on Thursday over Johnson’s claim that Labour leader Keir Starmer failed to prosecute paedophile Jimmy Savile during his time as director of public prosecutions (DPP).

Boris Johnson’s spokesman denies he has lost control after resignations

Johnson’s finance minister, Rishi Sunak, said pointedly that he would not have made such a remark. Starmer has cast Johnson’s comment as a ridiculous slur — and conspiracy theory — that shows Johnson is unfit to be British leader.

Ministers presented three additional resignations which followed Mirza as evidence that Johnson was fixing the problems at Downing Street and “taking charge”, though there remained considerable anger at Johnson within his own party.

“I’m deeply troubled by what’s going on,” Huw Merriman, a Conservative lawmaker who chairs the transport select committee, told BBC radio.

Merriman said that if the prime minister did not shape up then he would have to go, adding that many Conservative voters were upset and saddened about recent events at the highest levels of the British state.

A member of Johnson’s policy unit also quit on Friday, the editor of the Conservative Home website said. Downing Street declined immediate comment.

A spokesman for Johnson said the resignations of the prime minister’s three top aides — his chief of staff, principal private secretary and director of communications — had been agreed in advance of Mirza’s departure after the publication of a report into the alleged lockdown-busting parties that cited “serious failures of leadership”.

Asked if Johnson had lost control of his administration, the spokesman said: “No.” He added the prime minister had addressed Downing Street staff earlier on Thursday to thank those leaving and to acknowledge that change was challenging.

He quoted from the Lion King film, saying also “change is good”.

While opposition parties and some of Johnson’s own lawmakers have called on him to quit, there is concern that toppling a British leader at this juncture would leave the West weakened as it faces a potential military crisis in Ukraine.

With inflation soaring at the fastest rate in 30 years, anger at the government is likely to deepen before local elections in May.

Published in Dawn, February 5th, 2022