Downing Street resignations are NOT a 'mass exodus' - Tory MP tells GB News

Downing Street resignations are NOT a 'mass exodus' - Tory MP tells GB News
Yui Mok
Max Parry

By Max Parry


Published: 04/02/2022

- 11:31

Updated: 07/02/2022

- 08:44

Mark Jenkinson, MP for Workington, has told GB News the PM has chosen to reshape his inner circle, rather than his close staff choosing to leave him

Conservative MP for Workington, Mark Jenkinson, has told GB News there has not been a "mass exodus from Downing Street" despite the resignations of six No 10 staff.

Mr Jenkinson, who was elected in 2019, said: "The PM was clear on Monday in the House and to all MPs in the parliamentary Party that things would change in Number 10, that the operation needed to be improved.


"I am confident that the Prime Minister is concentrating on that job and that’s why these changes are happening."

Asked whether changes to the makeup of Boris Johnson's team of aides is a result of individual staff members choosing to do so, rather than at the will of Mr Johnson, Mr Jenkinson said: "I’m not privy to private conversations, we were promised changes, there were a number of significant changes.

"The first one [Munira Mirza] that went yesterday... [was replaced by] a sitting MP", Mr Jenkinson said.

Andrew Griffith, MP for Arundel and South Downs, has replaced Ms Mirza as head of the PM's policy unit.

"The Queen had appointed him [Mr Griffith] to that position within about forty minutes I think of the publication of the first resignation.

"So the fact that there is a team there, ready to go, suggests that these changes were in progress. There were changes promised and those changes are being delivered."

The Workington MP, who sits on the Energy Select Committee, continued his defence of the Prime Minister: "We need to concentrate on the job in hand, we’ve got a lot of work to do to deliver on the promises."

Mr Jenkinson's comments come following yesterday's resignation of Munira Mirza, Boris Johnson's former policy chief, chief of staff Dan Rosenfield also went on Thursday as did principal private secretary Martin Reynolds and communications director Jack Doyle.

Elena Narozanski, No 10 policy adviser on women and equalities, is also understood to have left her position, as reported by Conservative Home.

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