Grieving UK families demand action against ex-PM Johnson following damning Covid inquiry

MANCHESTER, England (CN) — Families who lost relatives to Covid-19 said Friday they will pursue legal action against former U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson after a long-awaited independent inquiry found his early handling of the pandemic cost lives.

The Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK group, which represents about 7,000 people across the country, also urged the government to strip the former leader of all public perks he receives.

“His actions during the pandemic amount to one of the gravest betrayals of the British public in modern history,” the group said in a statement. “His decisions, delays and refusal to listen to warnings cost tens of thousands of lives that could and should have been saved.”

They continued: “He must be held accountable. We are not asking for an apology. We are asking for consequences. Boris Johnson should have no role in public life and no further entitlement to public funds.”

As a former prime minister, Johnson is entitled to an allowance of up to $150,000 a year of public money. He has yet to respond to the report’s findings, which were published Thursday.

Inquiry found multiple government failures

The 800-page report is part of an ongoing public inquiry into the U.K.’s response to the pandemic and its impact on society.

Researchers found that locking down a week earlier could have saved 23,000 lives in the first wave of infections in England.

They said ministers could have avoided a full lockdown if they had introduced simple steps earlier, such as social distancing and isolation for people with symptoms.

The inquiry found the government failed to act with urgency as the early Covid crisis grew in Italy, which should have “prompted urgent planning across the four nations” of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

It described February 2020 as a “lost month” and said Johnson repeatedly changed direction, delayed decisions and oversaw a “toxic and chaotic culture” in Downing Street that slowed the response.

The report also noted that the rule-breaking parties and gatherings in government buildings, later known as Partygate, “undermined public confidence and increased the risk of people not complying with the rules designed to protect them,” the inquiry chair Heather Hallett said.

Former Conservative minister Michael Gove, who was responsible for coordinating the government’s response to the pandemic, apologized to the families, who he said “will feel I’m sure a sense of, not just grief, but understandable anger as they read some of the conclusions in this report,” he said in a radio interview.

He added: “I want to, on behalf of the government and also the Conservative party, apologize for mistakes that were made during that period.”

While agreeing that an earlier lockdown would have been wiser, Gove questioned the report’s assessment that it would have led to fewer deaths.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer said his government would “carefully consider” the report.

Meanwhile, Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey called on Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch to apologize on behalf of the Conservatives for what he said was an “abject failure” of leadership.

“The British people will rightly never forgive the Conservatives for leaving the country rudderless and vulnerable, and for partying while our communities were isolated and grieving,” he said.

Preparing for future pandemics

Hallett set out a series of recommendations aimed at improving how the U.K. responds to future pandemics and other national crises.

She called for stronger assessment of how decisions affect people most at risk, with systems that identify potential harms to vulnerable groups during planning and response.

She recommended that each nation should clarify how emergency decisions are made and who is responsible at each stage.

The report’s authors said the government must communicate decisions more clearly, with laws and guidance written in plain language and available in accessible formats.

They also urged Parliament to have greater oversight of emergency powers through time limits and regular reporting.

The Covid-19 Inquiry is divided into 10 modules examining different aspects of the pandemic. The report published this week is the second, focused on political governance and decisionmaking in the early months of 2020.

Other modules, which are already underway, will examine areas including the economic response, the impact on children and young people, the development and rollout of vaccines, and the awarding and procurement of personal protective equipment contracts.

A government review has already found that such failed contracts cost British taxpayers roughly $1.8 billion, which included unsafe and unused personal equipment procured through unlawful VIP lanes.

The full inquiry is expected to run several more years before producing final conclusions.

Courthouse News reporter James Francis Whitehead is based in England.

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