FILE PHOTO: Conservative MP Steve Baker walks outside Downing Street in London, Britain October 22, 2019. REUTERS/Simon Dawson
May 24, 2020
LONDON (Reuters) – A lawmaker from Britain’s ruling Conservative Party on Sunday called for the resignation of Dominic Cummings, the senior adviser to Prime Minister Boris Johnson who travelled 400 km (250 miles) from London to northern England during lockdown while his wife showed coronavirus symptoms.
“It is intolerable that Boris’ government is losing so much political capital,” Steve Baker wrote on Twitter. “Dominic Cummings must go.”
Cummings, who masterminded the 2016 campaign to leave the European Union during the Brexit referendum, travelled to Durham in late March, when measures to combat the spread of the coronavirus were already in place.
Johnson’s office said on Saturday he made the journey to ensure his 4-year-old son could be properly cared for as his wife was ill with COVID-19 and there was a “high likelihood” that Cummings would himself become unwell.
The Daily Mirror later reported that the advisor made a second trip from London during the lockdown and was spotted near Durham on April 19, days after returning to London from his first trip.
“We will not waste our time answering a stream of false allegations about Mr Cummings from campaigning newspapers,” Johnson’s Downing Street office said on Saturday.
Opposition politicians have called for Cummings, who wields huge influence on the government, to go, saying his actions were hypocritical at a time when millions of Britons were staying in their homes. Cummings has said he will not quit.
(Reporting by Costas Pitas; Editing by John Stonestreet and Angus MacSwan)
