PRIME Minister Boris Johnson will have to resign if the Tories are to stand any chance of winning the next election, according to disgraced MP Neil Parish
In an exclusive interview with GB News, Mr Parish said the party has lost the trust of the public and the leader will have to be replaced.
He was speaking in one of his most candid interviews since resigning for watching pornographic videos in the chamber of the House of Commons.
Commenting on the current state of the party, he told GB News’ Darren McCaffrey: “It’s falling apart and maybe could do with a bit of time, regrouping again….
“I don’t think we’re quite at 1997 yet and I think if we can actually sort of get through this we will have to replace our leader.
“It’s not if, it’s now when.
“We could still [win] because Labour and Keir Starmer – nice guy, but he’s not really cracking the mustard. The Liberal Democrats, yes, protest vote and they’ll do reasonably well but again, their revolution never quite comes.
“And so it’s not all over, but by God we aren’t half drinking in the last chance saloon.”
He went on to claim that he has been treated unfairly in comparison with Chris Pincher, who resigned as Conservative deputy chief whip over allegations of sexual assault, who remains as an MP.
Asked if the Prime Minister should have removed the whip from Chris Pincher earlier, he said: “Immediately.
“…the whip was removed from me before, I believe, I don’t think there ever were any formal complaints made against me.
“What the chief whip had is the world’s media like I did barking at him and so he got frightened and he took the whip straight away from me, and then afterwards gave me no help whatsoever.
“And you see that this duty of care as well I, I really do feel strongly about this because I want them to learn from what they did to me, and not to do it to others because I had a good political career for over 20 odd years…”
“All of a sudden they are in your space, they’re shouting abuse at you outside the door and so I couldn’t cope with it really but I had no help.”
He added: “I wasn’t a criminal, I was stupid but…the chief whip treated me as though I’d committed murder.
“And then part of the regime that took the whip away from me was Christopher Pincher. Well, I mean, I’m not going to comment on his behaviour but I just ask people listening to this to make a judgement – who was worse?”
Mr Parish said the affair calls the judgement of Boris Johnson into question.
“I like Boris and he’s very good on the big causes, on the vaccines, on dealing with Russia, you know, Putin and helping Ukraine, all of these things.
“But probably he’s got a problem of trust and a problem of integrity.
‘Now, I do gently question slightly his intelligence of this latest thing because you have a situation where Christopher Pincher reportedly had a minder in order to keep him from behaving badly, by all accounts.
“Boris must have known that Dominic Cummings knew that he used to nickname ‘Pincher by name, pincher by nature’.”
He said it contradicted the Prime Minister’s initial assertion that he knew nothing about allegations relating to Mr Pincher’s behaviour.
“So, Boris says I knew nothing of his behaviour, previous behaviour and so that’s why he should remain with the whip.
“It doesn’t seem credible, it’s not credible, but the point I’m making is that Dominic Cummings knows that about you.
“You know, Dominic Cummings, is there sharpening his knives every morning to see which one he can stick in and so what he’s immediately going to say is what the Prime Minister knew…
He added: “Not only is Boris ducking and diving again but it’s just not intelligent to fail if you didn’t know about his behaviour, when somebody will prove categorically, within a few hours or a day later, that you did know.
“And don’t forget it’s not only about the public now, it’s about the members of Parliament and don’t forget the members on our side.
“I’m seriously worried about Boris’s trust and do people trust him?”
