UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who spent seven months trying to move past the chaos of Brexit and the pandemic, is now grappling with accusations of controversy and chaos. Sunak's decision to go to court instead of releasing unredacted versions of Boris Johnson's WhatsApp messages and personal diaries has raised concerns about what he is trying to hide. Sunak was the Chancellor of the Exchequer during the pandemic and his decision has put the government's handling of the Covid-19 outbreak back in the public eye. Johnson's re-emergence has also threatened Sunak's leadership and his attempts to draw a line between his premiership and the controversies of the past.
Johnson announced that he would provide copies of his Covid-era communications, a move that bypasses the government and undercuts Sunak's efforts to keep them secret through a judicial review. However, Johnson's communications before May 2021 are on a phone locked for security reasons, meaning files from the first year of the pandemic might not be made public even after Johnson's intervention.
On the other hand, Sunak's problems are not limited to Johnson's communications. The inquiry is also investigating two WhatsApp groups that it claims to be undeclared and composed of the government's top scientific advisers, senior Cabinet Office and Treasury officials discussing pandemic decisions. The government officials argued that public inquiries should not have the right to access personal communications that are irrelevant to their investigations.
However, the inquiry questions whether it has been given the full picture and underscores the trust issues at stake, particularly when government officials are allowed to decide on the relevance of the material to a public investigation. Sunak's opposition to pandemic restrictions and his Eat Out to Help Out initiative, which aimed to boost restaurants but was blamed by some scientists for contributing to the spread of the virus, may be scrutinized by the inquiry.
The Tories currently trail the Labour opposition by about 16 percentage points in the latest surveys, and the government has many challenges to fulfill its promises, including cutting inflation and improving the economy. One minister has warned that public hearings ahead of the vote could result in leaks or damaging revelations.
Overall, the perception issue facing the Tories and Sunak shows that he has effectively gone to war with an inquiry set up by the government. Both the current prime minister and Johnson were fined for breaking the pandemic rules, leading to a plunge in the party's popularity. The retired judge selected by Johnson, Heather Hallet, has also been thorough and determined to embarrass the government, which has raised concerns for some ministers. Rivka Gottlieb, spokesperson for the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice group, has warned that failing to share the messages in full would be "utterly obscene" and would lead people to believe that the government wanted to "cover them up."