The Covid-19 public inquiry has issued a legal notice ordering the Cabinet Office to hand over unredacted versions of Boris Johnson’s WhatsApp messages and diaries dating from the pandemic.
On Wednesday, Lady Heather Hallett, chair of the inquiry, published the notice a day after it emerged that Johnson had been referred to police over new potential breaches of coronavirus regulations while prime minister.
Johnson made clear in a letter to Hallett that he had not been given sight of the inquiry’s request for unredacted information or the Cabinet Office’s refusal to hand this over.
He said any suggestion he himself had failed to provide documentation would be “unfair and untrue”.
He also said he had let go of the government-appointed lawyers representing him at the public inquiry, who had highlighted entries in his diary while prime minister that Cabinet Office officials then referred to the police last week.
The Times reported on Tuesday that the diary entries showed visits to Downing Street and Chequers, the country residence used by UK prime ministers, by Johnson’s friends and family during the pandemic.
Hallett disclosed the Covid public inquiry’s request for unredacted messages, contemporaneous notebooks and diaries from Johnson was made under section 21 of the 2005 inquiries act.
Hallett rejected the Cabinet Office’s argument that the inquiry’s request was unlawful, arguing that it had “misunderstood the breadth of the investigation” and that the requested material was of “potential relevance”.
The prime minister’s spokesman said “unambiguously irrelevant” documentation did not have to be disclosed to the inquiry, but added the government will “consider our next steps carefully”.
Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner called on the government to comply with the inquiry’s request “so the public is able to get to the truth and those responsible can be held to account”.
Johnson, meanwhile, said he was instructing new solicitors to represent him at the inquiry. His office said allegations of new Covid rule breaches by him were “totally untrue”.
Johnson’s team said the events discovered in his diary, which took place between June 2020 and May 2021 at Number 10 and Chequers, were within the rules.
His sister Rachel, a broadcaster and author, told LBC: “As far as I’m aware, all the rules were followed whenever I went to Chequers.”
Johnson became the first prime minister found to have committed a criminal offence while in office after attending a birthday party in Downing Street in June 2020 that was found to have breached coronavirus rules.
Amid anger among Johnson’s allies about the Cabinet Office’s move to hand Johnson’s diary entries to the police, Downing Street rejected claims of a politically motivated stitch-up of the former prime minister.
However, one Tory MP close to Johnson said there appeared to be a vendetta against him in some parts of the government, saying: “It’s almost as if they’ve seen him buried and keep going back to check the body is still cold.
“I hope the police look into it quickly and move on . . . But this does smell like an opportunity for the privileges committee inquiry to be elongated.”
Johnson is being investigated by the House of Commons privileges committee over whether he deliberately misled parliament over lockdown parties in Downing Street.
One person close to the privileges committee said the latest developments were likely to “slow down the publication of the report by a week or two”.
Referring to the new information about events at Downing Street and Chequers involving Johnson that have been referred to the police, they added: “For now it’s just allegations. We have to be careful before drawing any inferences from it . . . The question will be which of these meetings were work meetings.”
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