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More senior Conservative figures have called on Nadhim Zahawi to resign his role as party chair amid the ongoing controversy over his tax settlement with the HMRC.
The prime minister, who has ordered his ethics adviser to investigate whether Mr Zahawi broke ministerial rules, is also under pressure to act, having admitted there are “questions that need answering”.
Influential peer Lord Hayward became the latest Tory to say Mr Zahawi should step aside, at least until the inquiry concludes – warning that the saga could help “flatline” Tory popularity ahead of the local elections.
“I think there is a difficulty where you are party chairman because you’re supposed to be out there motivating the campaigners in preparations for key local elections,” he told Sky News.
Ex-Tory minister David Gauke was “hard to see how this doesn’t ultimately end in [Mr Zahawi’s] resignation”. He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme it would be a “very uncomfortable” PMQs for Mr Sunak if the minister was still in post at 12pm.
Dominic Grieve, former Tory attorney general, said Mr Sunak did not need his adviser’s investigation to answer the “obvious question” of whether Mr Zahawi had acted with integrity.
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“I think that it is impossible to answer that question and to say that he did,” he told BBC Newsnight. “And if that’s the case then quite frankly the prime minister is really under a duty to tell Nadhim Zahawi he’s got to resign. And the longer he stays there, the worse it’s going to get.”
Senior Tory MP Caroline Nokes increased the pressure when she publicly called on Mr Zahawi to go now, saying the tax affair had become “too much of a problem”.
The PM is facing a mounting backlash from his own MPs over the decision to keep the Tory chairman in the cabinet, with one former minister telling The Independent it was “insanity” to leave the matter unresolved.
Another ex-minister said the prime minister risked looking “indecisive” by keeping him in post, and revealed that the “general view” of Tory colleagues was that Mr Zahawi should resign now.
“It would be much better if he stepped aside now because he’s become such a distraction. He could still come back to government if the investigation clears him,” they said.
One backbench Tory in a blue wall seat said it was getting “tiresome” for MPs to try to account for the Tory chairman’s behaviour – admitting the pressure on Mr Zahawi “will not go away”.
However, Nigel Mills, Tory MP for Amber Valley, said he couldn’t “see the point of him standing aside” as Tory chair, adding: “Who runs the local election campaign? How long will the investigation take?”
Mr Mills said it was “much easier to fix this by him making a clear statement of what happened and why he suffered a penalty, if he did – then everyone can decide if that’s consistent with being a senior cabinet minister”.
A week ago, Mr Sunak told MPs that Mr Zahawi had “already addressed the matter in full” – but Downing Street subsequently revealed the PM had not been aware that the Conservative chairman had paid a penalty to HMRC as part of the settlement.
Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner also stepped up pressure on Mr Zahawi, reposting the minister’s own letter calling for Boris Johnson to quit in July 2022 with the words “listen to yourself”.
Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper said that every day Mr Zahawi “clings on” does more damage to Mr Sunak’s credibility. “What more will it take for Sunak to finally do the right thing and sack Zahawi, or at least suspend him for the duration of this investigation?”
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Mr Zahawi has not yet disclosed the size of the HMRC settlement, which reportedly amounted to £4.8m, including interest and a 30 per cent penalty of around £1m. His spokesman has not denied the sums.
Some 64 per cent of people – including 61 per cent of Tory voters – say Mr Zahawi should reveal exactly how much he handed over, according to the Savanta ComRes survey for The Independent.
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