Rishi Sunak urged to ‘come clean’ over what he knew about Nadhim Zahawi tax scandal after Tory chairman’s sacking
Rishi Sunak has been urged by Labour to “come clean” over what he knew about Nadhim Zahawi’s tax affairs after the PM sacked the Tory party chairman on Sunday.
An ethics inquiry into the handling of Mr Zahawi’s finances found a “serious breach” of the ministerial code and Mr Sunak swiftly removed the Tory chairman from his position.
But the PM remains under pressure to outline what he knew about the investigation into Mr Zahawi’s tax affairs and when.
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Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner and chairwoman Anneliese Dodds have written to Mr Sunak asking him to give the public “full transparency”.
The letter includes a range of questions for the prime minister to answer:
• When he was made aware of the HMRC investigation into Zahawi’s tax affairs and if he knew the former Party Chair had agreed a multi-million pound settlement with the taxman
• Why he previously stated at PMQs that all questions on this issue had been answered
• What discussions he had with Zahawi before appointing him to his cabinet
• When he will keep his promise to publish his own tax return for the 2022/23 tax year
• If any Conservative ministers had failed to submit their declaration of interests, and when the next register would be published.
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What is going on with Zahawi’s taxes?
Ms Dodds described Mr Sunak as “weak” for not sacking Mr Zahawi “when this murky affair first surfaced”.
“Rishi Sunak has eventually relented to pressure and sacked Nadhim Zahawi,” she said.
“This doesn’t change the fact that his government is drowning in sleaze, with whole rogues’ gallery of ministers being investigated for security breaches, bullying allegations and murky tax affairs.
“We need to know precisely what Rishi Sunak knew about Zahawi’s tax affairs and the HMRC investigation, why he was appointed to the cabinet in the first place, and when the prime minister will be transparent about his own tax return.”
Ms Rayner added: “This hopelessly weak prime minister has been dragged kicking and screaming into doing what he should have done long ago.
“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.
“He must now come clean on the advice he was given about that appointment in the first place and why he apparently ignored the warnings.”
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Nadhim Zahawi’s life in politics
Mr Sunak had resisted earlier calls from opposition parties to sack Mr Zahawi as Tory party chairman following reports that he had paid a penalty as part of an estimated £4.8m settlement dispute with HMRC.
He had instead asked his new ethics adviser – Sir Laurie Magnus – to assess whether the settlement amounted to a breach of the ministerial code.
In a letter written by Sir Laurie to the PM on Sunday morning following the conclusion of the investigation, the ethics adviser said Mr Zahawi had “shown insufficient regard for the general principles of the ministerial code” and had not fulfilled the requirements of being an “honest, open and an exemplary leader”.
In the correspondence to Mr Sunak released by Downing Street, Sir Laurie said his overall judgement was that the “omissions” by Mr Zahawi regarding his tax affairs “constitute a serious failure to meet the standards set out in the ministerial code”.
In a second letter written by the PM to Mr Zahawi following Sir Laurie’s findings, Mr Sunak said it is “clear that there has been a serious breach of the ministerial code” and announced the removal of the Tory chairman from his ministerial position.
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Nadhim Zahawi has been sacked
Informing Mr Zahawi of his decision to remove him from government, Mr Sunak wrote: “Following the completion of the independent adviser’s investigation – the findings of which he has shared with us both – it is clear that there has been a serious breach of the Ministerial Code.
“As a result, I have informed you of my decision to remove you from your position in His Majesty’s Government.”
Read more:
Who is Nadhim Zahawi? The politician sacked over his tax affairs?
Rishi Sunak: From Zahawi and Raab to seatbelt gaffe – the U-turns and scandals of his first months as PM
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”.
In a statement on Sunday morning, the Lib Dems said Mr Zahawi should also step down from his role as an MP as he is “unfit to serve the people of Stratford-upon-Avon”.
But 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 shortly after Mr Zahawi’s sacking, Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove told reporters Mr Sunak had taken “decisive action” following the publication of Sir Laurie’s report.
The bodies of three Israeli hostage taken by Hamas have been recovered in Gaza.
The remains were discovered in an overnight operation carried out by Israel’s military and intelligence agency Shin Bet, said chief military spokesman Daniel Hagari.
Itzhak Gelerenter, 56, Amit Buskila, 28, and Shani Louk, 22, were killed at the Nova music festival on 7 October, with their bodies then taken into Gaza by Hamas militants.
Ms Louk’s body was seen face-down in a pick-up truck travelling through Gaza in a video that was shared widely on social media after the hostages were taken.
Israel-Gaza war latest updates
Shani Louk
Itzhak Gelerenter
Amit Buskila
“They were celebrating life in the Nova music festival and they were murdered by Hamas,” said Mr Hagari.
He said their families have been notified.
“Our hearts go out to them, to the families at this difficult time. We will leave no stone unturned, we will do everything in our power to find our hostages and bring them home.”
The military did not give immediate details on where their bodies were found.
Ms Louk’s father has said the return of his daughter’s body to her family has been a form of closure.
Nissim Louk told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz his daughter “radiated light, to her and those who surrounded her, and in her death she still does”.
He added: “She is a symbol of the people of Israel, between light and darkness. Her inner and outer beauty that shone for all the world to see is a special one.”
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‘No respect’ for the world after Gaza horrors
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In November, the brother of Ms Louk told Sky News of their last phone call as his sister tried to escape Hamas.
Speaking about the video that was circulated online after she was taken, Amit Louk said: “I never thought I was going to be in contact with this type of video, seeing my sister in that brutal position.
“And just in that moment, the whole family just crashed.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the deaths “heartbreaking”, saying: “We will return all of our hostages, both the living and the dead.”
Meanwhile, Professor Hagai Levine, a member of the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, has said the recovery of the bodies is a “painful reminder” of those who are still in captivity.
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Child with rare genetic disorder stuck in Gaza
“We do not lose hope. We are preparing for the return of the hostages that are alive,” he added.
Israel has been operating in the Gaza Strip’s southern city of Rafah, where it says it has intelligence that hostages are being held.
Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people, mainly civilians, and abducted around 250 others in the 7 October attack.
Around half of those have since been freed, most in swaps for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel during a ceasefire in November.
Israel says around 100 hostages are still captive in Gaza, along with the bodies of around 30 more.
Israel’s campaign in Gaza since the attack has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials.
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Gaza situation ‘a complete disaster’
Mr Netanyahu has vowed to both eliminate Hamas and bring all the hostages back.
He faces pressure to resign, and the US has threatened to scale back its support over the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
Israelis are divided into two main camps: those who want the government to put the war on hold and free the hostages, and others who think the hostages are an unfortunate price to pay for eradicating Hamas.
World
Slovakia PM shooting: Friend of suspect recalls laughing with him just days before assassination attempt
Mile L’Udovit is leaning on the front door of his apartment block when we meet, just as he has done so often since moving in four decades ago.
He was one of the original tenants of the tatty building and so was his dear friend Juraj Cintula – the man charged with trying to kill Slovakia’s prime minister.
Mile is at once shocked, bemused, appalled and bewildered.
“He’s a good friend,” he tells me. Both men are 71 years old and talked often. “He was a decent, polite man. A good worker. His wife is a professor and his kids were okay. He had a good reputation. Everything was okay.
“Nobody expected something like this to happen. No one could imagine it. That’s the worst thing about it.
“I spoke to him on Monday and we were having a laugh, like neighbours do. It’s so unpleasant.”
Suspect Juraj Cintula is the author of several poetry collections. Pic: ENEX
The apartment block where L’Udovit and Cintula have lived for decades. Pic: AP Photo/Denes Erdos
He shakes his head and gestures up to Cintula’s apartment on the top of the building. “He will either die or get a life sentence. It’s going to be so hard for his family.”
Cintula has not yet been officially identified as the suspect, but it’s common knowledge in Slovakia.
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What we know about the shooting suspect
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Video shows moment Slovak PM was shot
Armed police even brought him back to the apartment, dressed in a bulletproof jacket and helmet, to help gather evidence. So why, I ask Mile, did his old friend allegedly try to kill Robert Fico?
“You know, I can’t really say,” he replies thoughtfully. “We took politics as something to laugh at. But we kept our own opinions – he had his, I had mine.
“He was opposed to certain acts of the government and his opinions were quite different. But what was in his mind? Really, nobody knows.”
World
Slovakia’s PM Robert Fico has second surgery in two days after assassination attempt leaves him in ‘very serious’ condition
Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico has had a second surgery in two days after being shot multiple times in Europe’s first assassination attempt in more than 20 years.
The 59-year-old was shot multiple times while greeting supporters in the former mining town of Handlova on Wednesday. A man has been arrested over the shooting.
Mr Fico was left with life-threatening injuries, and while his condition improved the president-elect of Slovakia said he escaped death “by just a hair”.
Read more:
Who is Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico?
He is currently recovering at the University FD Roosevelt Hospital in Banska Bystrica, and underwent a second surgery to remove dead tissue inside of his body.
Hospital director Miriam Lapunikova said he underwent a CT scan and is currently awake and stable in an intensive care unit, but added his condition is still “very serious”.
Miriam Lapunikova said Robert Fico underwent a second surgery to remove dead tissue on Friday. Pic: AP
Deputy prime minister Robert Kaliniak also told reporters: “I think it will take several more days until we will definitely know the direction of the further development.”
While Mr Fico continued to recover from the attack – the first assassination attempt of a European political leader for more than 20 years – police brought the suspect to his home while they searched it.
Markiza, a Slovakian television station, showed footage of the suspect accompanied by police in the town of Levice and reported police had seized a computer and some documents.
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Slovak PM shooting suspect’s home raided
He was then escorted out and back into the police car.
The suspect was previously named as 71-year-old Juraj Cintula. He is said to be a writer and poet.
President-elect Peter Pellegrini said on Thursday that the prime minister is living “the worst hours and days of his life” after the shooting.
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If the “gunshot wounds were just a few millimetres either side, we would be talking about him as the late prime minister”, he said.
Mr Fico has long been a divisive figure. His return to power last year on a pro-Russian, anti-American ticket led to worries among fellow EU and NATO members that he would turn his country further away from the Western mainstream.
Under his stewardship, the government has halted arms deliveries to Ukraine, and his opponents worry he will lead Slovakia in the footsteps of Viktor Orban’s Hungary.
Thousands have repeatedly rallied in the capital and across Slovakia to protest against Mr Fico’s policies.
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