‘Partygate’: Johnson’s removal is now inevitable, warns loyalist

Boris Johnson's desperate efforts to save his premiership were undermined on Saturday as one of his most loyal backbench supporters said it was now "inevitable" that Tory MPs would remove him from office over the "partygate" scandal.

In an interview with the Observer, Sir Charles Walker, a former vice-chairman of the 1922 Committee of backbench Conservative MPs, implored the prime minister to go of his own accord in the national interest, and likened events in the Tory party to a Greek tragedy.

"It is an inevitable tragedy," Walker said. "He is a student of Greek and Roman tragedy. It is going to end in him going, so I just want him to have some agency in that."

Walker, who announced at the start of the month that he was stepping down as an MP, said that in his view Johnson had got many things right, including the handling of the vaccine rollout, and deserved to be remembered for them, rather than suffer the indignity of losing a leadership challenge.

But he said the succession of parties in Downing Street during national lockdowns had focused the anger of a traumatised country on No 10 in a way that could only be addressed if the prime minister moved aside. "It is just not going to get better," he said.

On Saturday night, Johnson moved to shore up his operation at No 10 - which was rocked by the resignations of five of his key aides last week - by the appointment of the chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, Steve Barclay, as his chief of staff and Guto Harri, who worked for him when Johnson was mayor of London, as his director of communications.

The appointment of an MP to be chief of staff is highly unusual and suggests Johnson may have faced problems in recruiting an outsider to the role at a time when many in Whitehall doubt he will last much longer in No 10.