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Tory sleaze: UK PM sacks party chairman over tax affairs

Monday, 30 January 2023 11:27 PM [ Last Update: Tuesday, 31 January 2023 11:05 AM ]

Saeed Pourreza
Press TV, London

Nadhim Zahawi, the Conservative Party chairman, has fallen from grace for not paying his taxes. He received accolades as vaccine minister during the pandemic and even ran for prime minister last year. His downfall began after it emerged that he settled nearly a six-million-dollar dispute with the UK’s tax collector HMRC during his time as chancellor last summer. An inquiry ordered by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak found Zahawi had breached the ministerial code.

Zahawi is out and now the focus has shifted to the prime minister. This week, he will face tough questions about how much he knew about Zahawi’s tax affairs and when.

Zahawi’s sacking has also acted as a reminder about Rishi Sunak’s reinstatement of Suella Braverman as Home Secretary last year after she resigned for breaching the ministerial code by sending a sensitive official document from her personal email account.

Nadhim Zahawi’s sacking reveals the shadow of sleaze hanging over Sunak from the Johnson era.

Speaking of Boris Johnson, he’s been named by his supporters as a potential candidate to replace Nadhim Zahawi.

That in addition to a parliamentary inquiry into whether Boris Johnson misled the House of Commons over party-gate-lockdown rule breaking drinking sessions during the pandemic and an investigation into numerous complaints of bullying by deputy PM Domonique Raab.

Nadhim Zahawi will be remembered as the minister who played fast and loose with the rules and became the first one to be dismissed by the prime minister, but no one's sure if he will be the last.

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