Boris Johnson to bypass Cabinet Office and hand over unredacted messages on to COVID inquiry

Boris Johnson has despatched “all unredacted WhatsApps” directly to the COVID inquiry ahead of a legal battle between the probe and the government over access to the messages.

The former prime minister said he would “love to do the identical” with texts which might be on an previous cell phone he stopped utilizing as a result of safety considerations in May 2021 – that are more likely to relate to the three lockdowns ordered in 2020.

The transfer means he’s bypassing the Cabinet Office, which has launched a legal challenge against the request from the inquiry to hand over the material in unredacted form.

The Cabinet Office mentioned there are “important principles at stake” – resembling the difficulty of privateness.

But in a letter to the chair of the COVID inquiry, Baroness Hallett, Mr Johnson mentioned: “While I understand the government’s position, I am not willing to let my material become a test case for others when I am perfectly content for the inquiry to see it.”

Mr Johnson mentioned he was handing over “all unredacted WhatsApps I provided to the Cabinet Office” and mentioned he has requested them handy over his notebooks.

He mentioned he would “like to do the same with any material that may be on an old phone which I have previously been told I can no longer access safely”.

He mentioned that recommendation needs to be “test[ed]”, and he has requested the federal government for his or her assist to activate the gadget safely handy over the fabric.

Rishi Sunak has been facing accusations of a cover-up over the refusal handy over all of Mr Johnson’s unredacted materials to the COVID inquiry, which is analyzing the UK’s response to the pandemic.

Mr Johnson, who was prime minister in the course of the disaster, had already made clear he was blissful to stick to the inquiry chairwoman’s request and earlier this week gave messages and notebooks to the Cabinet Office.

But forward of a deadline handy it over at 4pm yesterday, they stood by their argument that the paperwork being sought by the inquiry are “unambiguously irrelevant” and canopy issues “unconnected to the government’s handling of COVID”.

They at the moment are gearing up for a high-profile authorized battle after taking the weird step of bringing a judicial review of Baroness Hallett’s authorized order.