The Ukraine crisis has exposed the partygate scandal as “fluff” and “fundamentally trivial”, Jacob Rees-Mogg has claimed.
The Brexit opportunities minister said Russia’s invasion of Ukraine served as a reminder that “the world is serious” and that “nobody cares” about rows over political correctness and “wokery”.
The former Commons leader sought to play down the scandal that recently engulfed the government at an event hosted by the ConservativeHome website on the fringe of the party’s spring conference in Blackpool.
According to the Independent, Rees-Mogg said the Ukraine crisis was “a reminder that the world is serious, and that there are serious things to be discussed and serious and difficult decisions for politicians to take — whether this is about reopening and having new licences for oil wells in the North Sea, or whether it is about getting away from the wokery that has beset huge sections of society”.
And he said “nobody cares” about rows over language that may offend people, adding: “All that nonsense is shown up for the trivial nature of it, and that we are now looking at serious, difficult decisions that have to be made.”
Rees-Mogg said the same argument could be made about the parties allegedly held in Downing Street during the pandemic, when members of the public were forced to stay away from loved ones due to social distancing rules.
A report by Whitehall mandarin Sue Gray blamed “failures of leadership and judgment” in Number 10 and the Cabinet Office for the scandal, and said it was “difficult to justify” the controversial gatherings and the “excessive consumption of alcohol” by government staff.
Gray’s findings prompted some Tories to publicly call for Boris Johnson’s resignation or hand in a letter of no confidence to the 1922 committee of backbench MPs.
However, the Ukraine crisis has prompted some of Johnson’s staunch critics, including Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross, to withdraw their demands for Johnson to quit.
But Rees-Mogg said the anger around partygate had been “shown up for the disproportionate fluff of politics that it was, rather than something of fundamental seriousness about the safety of the world and about the established global order”.
He went on: “When we look back in 36 years at partygate, people will think ‘what were they on about?’
“They were moving from Covid to Russia and Ukraine, yet they were distracted by whether or not the PM spent five minutes in his own garden.
“It’s fundamentally trivial.”