Rishi Sunak says he acted ‘decisively’ in sacking Nadhim Zahawi following tax affairs row
Rishi Sunak has insisited he acted “decisively” in sacking Nadhim Zahawi as chairman of the Conservative Party after a row over his tax affairs.
Speaking in Country Durham at the launch of his government’s emergency care plan, the prime minister defended his handling of situation and stressed his commitment to “integrity” and the need to follow proper processes.
“What I have done is follow a process, which is the right process,” he said.
“Integrity is really important to me – all of you guys want to see that government is run properly, that it is run with integrity and there’s accountability when people don’t behave in the way that they should or if something doesn’t go right, and that’s what we’ve done.”
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Mr Sunak also promised he would “take whatever steps are necessary to restore the integrity back into politics”.
“The things that happened before I was prime minister, I can’t do anything about,” the prime minister said.
“What I think you can hold me to account for is how I deal with the things that arise on my watch.
“And as you’ve seen, you know, when it came to Nadhim Zahawi, I asked the independent adviser to look at it straight away, acted on his findings straight away.
“That should give you some confidence that these things matter to me, and that I will take whatever steps are necessary to restore the integrity back into politics, and you can have confidence that the process works.”
Mr Zahawi was sacked as Tory party chairman on Sunday after an ethics inquiry into the handling of his tax affairs found a “serious breach” of the ministerial code.
Mr Sunak had resisted earlier calls from opposition parties to fire Mr Zahawi following reports that he had paid a penalty as part of an estimated £4.8m settlement dispute with HMRC.
But following the conclusion of an inquiry into the matter by his new ethics adviser Sir Laurie Magnus – which found that Mr Zahawi had “shown insufficient regard for the general principles of the ministerial code” – Mr Sunak swiftly removed the former Tory chairman from his post.
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Zahawi sacked over tax row
Critics of Mr Sunak have said he should have acted sooner in dismissing Mr Zahawi.
But the prime minister said it was on the basis of the facts contained in Sir Laurie’s report released on Sunday morning that he was “able to make a very quick decision that it was no longer appropriate for Nadhim Zahawi to continue in government”.
Read more:
Who is Nadhim Zahawi? The politician sacked over his tax affairs?
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Yesterday, Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner and chairwoman Anneliese Dodds wrote to Mr Sunak asking him to give the public “full transparency” about what he knew about the investigation into Mr Zahawi’s tax affairs and when.
Ms Dodds described Mr Sunak as “weak” for not sacking Mr Zahawi “when this murky affair first surfaced”.
Ms Rayner added: “Rishi Sunak shouldn’t have needed an ethics adviser to tell him that Nadhim Zahawi’s position was untenable, but instead he continued to prop up the man he appointed to cabinet.”
Speaking to Sky News earlier today, shadow international trade secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds suggested the PM could have been lying about what he knew about Mr Zahawi’s tax affairs.
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‘PM must come clean on Zahawi’
Asked whether he believed Mr Sunak has lied about what he knew of the matter, Mr Thomas-Symonds replied: “How could the prime minister not have known about the fact of the investigation when Mr Zahawi declared it in July?”
The row surrounding Mr Zahawi had centred on a tax bill over the sale of shares in YouGov – the polling firm he founded worth an estimated £27m – which were held by Balshore Investments, a company registered offshore in Gibraltar and linked to Mr Zahawi’s family.
Mr Zahawi had insisted he was “confident” he had “acted properly throughout”.
Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper has called on Mr Sunak to withdraw the Conservative whip from Mr Zahawi “if he refuses to stand down as an MP” as he is “simply not fit to represent his constituents”.
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In a letter to Mr Sunak following his sacking – in which he made no apology for his actions – Mr Zahawi told the PM he can be “assured of my support from the backbenches in the coming years”.
Speaking to Sky News on Monday, health minister Helen Whately said she thought the PM followed a “fair” process when deciding to sack the former Conservative party chairman.
The Syrian presidency has announced it’s assembling a special taskforce to try to stop nearly a week of sectarian clashes in the southern Druze city of Sweida.
The presidency called for restraint on all sides and said it is making strenuous efforts to “stop the fighting and curb the violations that threaten the security of the citizens and the safety of society”.
By early Saturday morning, a ceasefire had been confirmed by the US special envoy for Syria, Tom Barrack, who posted on X that Syrian President Ahmed al Sharaa and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had agreed to a ceasefire supported by US secretary of state Marco Rubio.
The post went on to state that this agreement had the support of “Turkey, Jordan and its neighbours” and called upon the Druze, Bedouins, and Sunni factions to put down their arms.
Sky News special correspondent Alex Crawford reports from the road leading to Sweida, the city that has become the epicentre of Syria’s sectarian violence.
For the past 24 hours, we’ve watched as Syria‘s multiple Arab tribes began mobilising in the Sweida province to help defend their Bedouin brethren.
Thousands travelled from multiple different Syrian areas and had reached the edge of Sweida city by Friday nightfall after a day of almost non-stop violent clashes and killings.
“We have come to protect the [Arab] Bedouin women and children who are being terrorised by the Druze,” they told us.
Arab fighters said they had come to protect the Bedouin women and children
Fighters at a petrol station
Every shop and every home in the streets leading up to Sweida city has been burned or ransacked, the contents destroyed or looted.
We saw tribal fighters loading the back of pickup trucks and driving away from the city with vehicles packed with looted goods from Druze homes.
Shops and homes leading up to Sweida city have been burned or ransacked
Several videos posted online showed violence against the Druze, including one where tribal fighters force three men to throw themselves off a high-rise balcony and are seen being shot as they do so.
Doctors at the nearby community hospital in Buser al Harir said there had been a constant stream of casualties being brought in. As we watched, another dead fighter was carried out of an ambulance.
The medics estimated there had been more than 600 dead in their area alone. “The youngest child who was killed was a one-and-a-half-year-old baby,” one doctor told us.
Doctors said there had been a constant stream of casualties due to violence
The violence is the most dangerous outbreak of sectarian clashes since the fall of the Bashar al Assad regime last December – and the most serious challenge for the new leader to navigate.
The newly brokered deal is aimed at ending the sectarian killings and restoring some sort of stability in a country which is emerging from more than a decade of civil war.
Israel and Syria have agreed to a ceasefire, the US ambassador to Turkey has said.
Several hundred people have reportedly been killed this week in the south of Syria in violence involving local fighters, government authorities and Bedouin tribes.
As the violence escalated in the southern province of Sweida, Israel launched airstrikes, including attacks on Wednesday on the defence ministry in Damascus and a target near the presidential palace.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government said it aimed to protect Syrian Druze – part of a small but influential minority that also has followers in Lebanon and Israel.
In a post on X, the US ambassador to Turkey, Tom Barrack, said Israel and Syria had agreed to a ceasefire supported by Turkey, Jordan and others.
“We call upon Druze, Bedouins, and Sunnis to put down their weapons and together with other minorities build a new and united Syrian identity,” Mr Barrack said in a post on X.
The Israeli embassy in Washington and Syrian Consulate in Canada did not immediately comment or respond to requests for comment from the Reuters news agency.
The ceasefire announcement came after the US worked to put an end to the conflict, with secretary of state Marco Rubio saying on Wednesday that steps had been agreed to end a “troubling and horrifying situation”.
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Why is Israel bombing Syria?
After Israel warned it would destroy forces attacking Syrian Druze, Syrian President Ahmed al Sharaa told the minority group in a televised statement on Thursday that “we reject any attempt to drag you into hands of an external party”.
He then claimed Israel has “consistently targeted our stability and created discord among us since the fall of the former regime”.
It comes after the United Nations’ migration agency said earlier on Friday that nearly 80,000 people had been displaced in the region since violence broke out on Sunday.
It also said that essential services, including water and electricity, had collapsed in Sweida, telecommunications systems were widely disrupted, and health facilities in Sweida and Daraa were under severe strain.
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At least three people have been killed after a “horrific incident” at a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department training facility, officials have said.
A spokesperson for the department said there was an explosion at the Biscailuz Center Academy Training in east LA.
The incident was reported at around 7.30am local time (3.30pm UK time).
Aerial footage from local channel KABC-TV suggests the blast happened in a parking lot filled with sheriff patrol cars and box trucks.
The training centre in east LA. Pic: NBC Los Angeles
Attorney general Pam Bondi wrote on X: “I just spoke to @USAttyEssayli about what appears to be a horrific incident that killed at least three at a law enforcement training facility in Los Angeles.
“Our federal agents are at the scene and we are working to learn more.”
California congressman Jimmy Sanchez said the explosion had “claimed the lives of at least three deputies”.
“My condolences to the families and everyone impacted by this loss,” he said.
Media and law enforcement officials near the explosion site. Pic: AP
The attorney general said in a follow-up post that agents from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are “on the ground to support”.
The mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, said the LAPD bomb squad has also responded to the scene.
“The thoughts of all Angelenos are with all of those impacted by this blast,” she said.
California Governor Gavin Newsom has been briefed on the incident, his press office said in a post on X.
“The Governor’s Office of Emergency Services is in contact with the Sheriff’s Department and closely monitoring the situation, and has offered full state assistance,” it added.
The cause of the explosion is being investigated.
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