LONDON — Because WhatsApp is popular among lawmakers and government employees, detractors claim the British government runs “government by WhatsApp.”
Therefore, it only makes sense that the main focus of Britain’s official investigation into how the nation handled the COVID-19 outbreak is a dispute over WhatsApp communications.
The investigation run by retired judge Heather Hallett included a lot of communications between then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson and cabinet members, advisors, and officials during the pandemic. Since some of the messages are private and unrelated to the investigation, the Conservative administration, currently under the leadership of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, wants the ability to modify them before turning them over. It has challenged Hallett’s directive to turn over the unredacted messages in court.
What is the investigation looking into?
One of the greatest death rates in Europe, more than 200,000 people have died in Britain after testing positive for COVID-19, and Johnson’s government’s choices have been hotly contested. Johnson gave in to pressure from bereaved families in late 2021 and decided to launch an investigation.
The scope of Hallett’s investigation will focus on the United Kingdom’s pandemic preparedness, the government’s response, and whether or not the “level of loss was inevitable or whether things could have been done better.”
The former prime minister and many other top government officials are expected to testify during public hearings starting on June 13 and going through 2026.
WHY IS WHATSAPP Johnson OFF?
The texting service, owned by Meta, has grown to be a favorite among British government officials and the journalists who cover them. Users may feel secure knowing their conversations will remain private because of its end-to-end encryption and ease of use for solo and group chats.
This confidence has occasionally shown to be misplaced. Tens of thousands of his texts were given to a writer who was assisting Matt Hancock, a former health secretary who helped lead Britain’s response to the epidemic, in writing a memoir. The journalist gave them to a newspaper, which ran a series of front-page pieces with unpleasant details.
Johnson’s correspondence with more than thirty scientists and government representatives over two years beginning in early 2020 has been requested by Hallett. She also requests access to Johnson’s contemporaneous journals and notebooks.
WHAT IS THE POSITION OF THE GOVERNMENT?
According to the Sunak administration, some texts that took over after Johnson resigned amid scandals in the middle of 2022 are “unambiguously irrelevant” to the COVID-19 investigation. According to the statement, making them public would violate the public’s “legitimate expectations of privacy and protection of their personal information” and other areas of government activity.
The government’s Cabinet Office challenged Hallett’s request for the documents in court papers filed on Thursday. In the upcoming weeks, a hearing in the High Court will be the next step.
Hallett has the authority to call witnesses and subpoena them to testify per the investigation’s rules established at the outset with the government’s consent.
The former head of the government legal service Jonathan Jones stated, “The government has an uphill task,” in a blog post for the Institute for Government. The court will likely rule that the inquiry chair should choose how to proceed and what materials she needs to review.
WHAT SUGGESTS BORIS JOHNSON?
Johnson and his successor Sunak have a history of conflict; Sunak’s resignation from the administration in July 2022 assisted in Johnson’s overthrow.
Johnson has stated that he is happy to turn over his texts, separating himself from the government’s position. He claimed to have sent Hallett’s inquiry the WhatsApp exchanges on Friday.
However, they only cover a portion of the requested time period in another twist. There are no communications from Johnson that date back before April 2021. That period covers the early stages of the pandemic, during which the government made crucial decisions that are still debated today, three periods of the national lockdown, and the dates of the unlawful parties that took place in government buildings and resulted in a large number of people, including Johnson, receiving fines from the police.
Johnson claims that the messages are on a phone that he has been told not to use after the media discovered that his number had been listed online for 15 years.
According to Johnson, the security services ordered him to stop using the phone and never switch it on again. On Friday, he informed Hallett that he had “requested the Cabinet Office for assistance turning it on securely so I could search it for all pertinent documents. I suggest sending you all of this information directly.
SOURCE – (AP)
