Government to launch legal bid to stop Covid inquiry seeing Johnson WhatsApps

The government is to launch a legal challenge over the Covid inquiry’s demand for WhatsApp messages and documents.

Officials missed a 16:00 deadline to disclose messages between Boris Johnson and his advisers during the pandemic, as well as his diaries and notebooks.

The government has refused to disclose some of the material, arguing it is not relevant to the inquiry’s work.

But the inquiry’s boss says deciding what is relevant should be her job.

Crossbench peer Baroness Hallett, the inquiry chairwoman, says she needs to see the messages to see if they are relevant to the inquiry’s investigation into how the government handled the pandemic.

But the government says handing over the requested material would set a precedent that could prevent ministers discussing policy matters in future.

The Cabinet Office, which is taking the lead for the government, has said it will apply for a judicial review. This means a judge will decide whether the inquiry had overreached its legal powers to demand evidence.

Opposition parties have accused Rishi Sunak’s government of trying to obstruct the Covid inquiry and urged him to comply with its requests.

Labour’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner, said: “These latest smoke-and-mirror tactics serve only to undermine the Covid Inquiry.”

She added: “The public deserve answers, not another cover-up.”

Some senior Conservative MPs had urged the government to back down to avoid a lengthy legal showdown with the Covid inquiry.

The legal challenge came a day after Mr Johnson claimed he had given the Cabinet Office all the WhatsApp messages and notebooks demanded by the Covid inquiry.

He urged the Cabinet Office to submit the material to the inquiry in full, without redactions, adding he would do so himself “if asked”.

The inquiry had requested access to WhatsApp messages from Mr Johnson’s phone, covering the period 1 January, 2020 to 24 February, 2022.

But the material Mr Johnson submitted did not include messages sent before May 2021.

This was because he had been forced to change phones after a security breach, the director of the Cabinet Office said in a statement to the inquiry.

Mr Johnson changed his mobile phone in 2021 after it emerged his number had been freely available on the internet for the past 15 years.