Downing Street drinks: Southampton residents call on PM to resign

Boris Johnson faces mounting pressure after he admitted attending a “bring-your-own-booze” lockdown drinks party on May 20 2020.

Yesterday he acknowledged the “rage”caused over the incident but insisted he thought it could have been technically within the rules.

Mr Johnson told MPs that he attended the gathering for around 25 minutes to “thank groups of staff.”

Photo: PA

But his admission has led to Southampton residents calling on him to quit.

Daily Echo reader Anne Ings said: “Get rid of him and the other guests that attended.”

Nick Chaffey simply said “resign” while another reader added: “I think it’s about time he stood down.”

Labour MP for Southampton Test, Alan Whitehead said: “I do think the Prime Minister should do the right thing and resign. He has admitted that he was at the party and I thought his excuse on that, that he didn’t know it was a party, was quite frankly unbelievable.

“It is incredibly frustrating and upsetting that while the majority of local people were doing the right thing trying to keep their loved ones and wider community safe, Boris Johnson was allegedly having garden parties. 

Labour MP for Southampton Test, Alan Whitehead

“Many Southampton people were contacting me at that time, weddings having been cancelled, businesses at risk of closure, mental health suffering.

“They made untold sacrifices that apparently Boris Johnson and his team were not willing to make. 

“I think they should face the same consequences that others were made to face when they broke the rules during lockdown, we cannot have one rule for the government and another for everyone else.”

When the party was held, lockdown was in place and people were only permitted to meet one other person from another household outdoors, two metres apart.

Gatherings essential for work purposes were allowed.

Daily Echo readers have said they were grieving the loss of loved ones and enduring wedding cancellations at the time the party took place.

Speaking on Facebook, reader Sharon Ottembrajt said: “My husband was organising his father’s funeral after he died from having Covid.”

Another reader, David Cox, said he was “in hospital receiving treatment for leukaemia without any family friends or visitors for six weeks at a time in my own room”.

Conservative MP for Romsey and Southampton North, Caroline Nokes, declined to go further than an email to her constituents.

Conservative MP for Romsey and Southampton North, Caroline Nokes (Image: Supplied)

In it, she said: “I have no words that can adequately express how angry I am at the ‘don’t do as I do, do as I say’ attitude that appears to have prevailed in Downing Street.

“I will not try to explain or excuse, but I will certainly apologise to you for the conduct that has come to light.”

But Conservative MP or Southampton Itchen, Royston Smith said: “Everyone did their best. Almost no one got it right all the time. I say, ‘they who are without sin, let them cast the first stone’.”

He said more would be known when the inquiry by civil servant Sue Gray is completed - but added Mr Johnson was in his own garden.