There is no escaping the mess the Conservatives are in – but the country must not suffer for it

Editorial: The Partygate video is another example of the arrogance that has run through the Tory party in recent years. We need the government to focus on the problems facing the nation, not get swallowed by infighting

Boris Johnson (AP)

As the Conservative Party faces a mounting list of problems – all of its own making – it is the country that suffers.

Most recently it is the families who lost loved ones to Covid-19, viewing the footage of Tory activists partying during lockdown in 2020. Reliving that pain and feeling the anger that follows must be incredibly difficult, and while Michael Gove’s apology over the video during the Sunday morning media rounds was the correct thing to do, it will bring little comfort.

The added twist of the knife is how it links to Boris Johnson’s “dishonours” list, with one of the revellers featured in the video – Ben Mallet, a former aide to the ex-prime minister – awarded an OBE. The event, at Conservative Party headquarters, was organised by the campaign team for Shaun Bailey, who was running for London mayor at the time. Mr Bailey was awarded a peerage in Mr Johnson’s honours list.

The Independent has been clear about the stain this list has left on politics, packed as it is with Mr Johnson’s allies. The fact that these two strands – Partygate and honours – are linked just highlights the tangled web Mr Johnson and his party have woven in recent years.

Mr Gove has suggested that he doesn’t believe Mr Mallet and Mr Bailey should be stripped of their honours and, despite the calls from Labour and others for them to be removed, there appears little chance that the prime minister will do it. There would be an obvious moral case for removing them – but how often have the words “moral” and “Conservative Party” been used in conjunction recently?

For Rishi Sunak, the pressure is rising. He faces four by-elections – one triggered by Mr Johnson himself after he stepped down in the wake of being found to have lied to parliament over the Partygate scandal. There is also the matter of the parliamentary vote on the privileges committee’s report that laid out how Mr Johnson had misled MPs. While the motion approving the report is expected to pass comfortably, it is an embarrassment for Mr Sunak – who cannot appear to escape the toxic fallout stemming from the tenure of his predecessor.

All of this is important. Figures like Mr Johnson, and the Conservative Party at large, must be shown there are consequences for the actions they take. Mr Sunak may want to move on, but the medicine has to be taken. What the country could do with less of is the Tory psychodrama and the infighting.

There are issues that need to be tackled as a priority – rising interest rates and their impact on mortgages being the latest. But this cannot merely act as a distraction from the party’s troubles. The Conservatives must sincerely address the fallout from issues such as Partygate while also working to make the daily lives of people across the country better. That is what the nation deserves.

There is no shortcut through all this for the Conservatives, and voters will issue their final judgement during a general election. But there is a clear path for Mr Sunak: acknowledge exactly how bad things have been; refuse to let his party indulge in attempts to tear itself apart over petty acts that serve little but the pride of those involved; and get on with solving the pressing economic issues facing the country.