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MPs failure to challenge Johnson is deeply damaging

Green Party parliamentary candidates in Herefordshire have questioned local MPs Bill Wiggin and Jesse Norman over their stance on the Partygate scandal following developments in Westminster this week.

North Herefordshire’s Ellie Chowns said: ‘Our country needs a leader who can be trusted to do the right thing, to tell the truth, and to stick to the rules that he asked everyone else to follow. Boris Johnson has demonstrated that he simply can’t be trusted and he can’t tell right from wrong. It’s time for him to go. Our country deserves better. We need to know if our Herefordshire MPs are prepared to defend the indefensible.’

‘Boris Johnson’s failure of leadership is not only damaging trust in public health measures, but he is also allowing other very urgent issues to spiral out of control, including the cost of living, potential war in Ukraine, and the climate crisis,’ said Chowns.

Parliamentary candidate for Herefordshire South, Diana Toynbee, said: ‘Jesse Norman and Bill Wiggin are good friends of Boris Johnson. The people of Herefordshire have the right to know how they view his behaviour. Our message to them is: If he has your full support, does it mean you are happy to leave us with a Prime Minister who is reckless, dishonest and irresponsible, at a time of national and international crisis? If he has lost your support, what was the final straw? We look forward to the answer.’

With Boris Johnson being accused of lying to Parliament over parties held in No.10 Downing Street while the country was in lockdown, the Green Party has said that it is past time for the Prime Minister to resign. Ellie Chowns warned that replacing Boris Johnson with another untrustworthy MP as Prime Minister would not solve the problem.

‘We should be under no illusion that just getting rid of Boris Johnson will fix the culture of hypocrisy and entitlement that has taken hold in our political system. I am worried that we will end up with one charlatan replacing another,’ said Chowns.

‘Whoever is our next Prime Minister should be subject to rigorous scrutiny. They should not, like Boris Johnson and his colleagues, apparently see no problem in lying to the public and to other MPs.’