Lord Geidt’s resignation letter has finally been published, and it’s damning. According to Geidt ,whilst he’d been able to reconcile all the previous, and widely reported, strains of his relationship with the PM, a request this week finally tipped him over the edge. Without going into detail he writes that he was “tasked to offer a view about the Government’s intention to consider measures which risk a deliberate and purposeful breach of the Ministerial Code”:

“This request has placed me in an impossible and odious position. My informal response on Monday was that you and any other Minister should justify openly your position vis-à-vis the Code in such circumstances. However, the idea that a Prime Minister might to any degree be in the business of deliberately breaching his own Code is an affront. A deliberate breach, or even an intention to do so, would be to suspend the provisions of the Code to suit a political end. This would make a mockery not only of respect for the Code but licence the suspension of its provisions in governing the conduct of Her Majesty’s Ministers. I can have no part in this.”

Boris’s reply sets out the issue was over “potential future decisions related to the Trade Remedies Authority”. In seeking to protect a “crucial industry” that would suffer material harm if the government “do not continue to apply” tariffs, the PM acknowledges that such plans would be in line with domestic law, however it may have conflicted with obligations under the World Trade Organisation. He adds “your letter came as a surprise”…

Read Geidt’s resignation letter in full below: