ONE OF Boris Johnson's justice ministers has become the first member of the government to resign over the partygate lockdown breaches. 

Lord David Wolfson said the Prime Minister’s actions were “inconsistent with the rule of law”.

Police handed fixed penalty notices to Mr Johnson, his wife Carrie, and Chancellor Rishi Sunak on Tuesday for attending a surprise birthday party for the Prime Minister at the height of the first Covid lockdown. 

The Met has now handed out over 50 fines to people who attended rule-breaking parties in Downing Street and Whitehall. 

In his letter, shared on Twitter, Lord Wolfson, who has served as a junior minister at the Ministry of Justice since December 2020, said the “recent disclosures lead to the inevitable conclusion that there was repeated rule-breaking and breaches of the criminal law in Downing Street.”

He added: “I have, again with considerable regret, come to the conclusion that the scale context and nature of those breaches mean it would be inconsistent with the rule of law for that conduct to pass with constitutional impunity, especially when many in society complied with rules at great personal cost, and others were fined or prosecuted for similar and sometimes apparently more trivial offences. 

“It is not just a question of what happened in Downing Street or your own conduct. It is also and perhaps more so, the official response to what took place. As we obviously do not share the view of these matters. I must ask you to accept my resignation.”

The QC quoted a famous 18th century case on abolishing slavery, and the need to “let justice prevail, though the heavens fall.”

He added: "I am very sorry that the sky has prematurely fallen in on my current ministerial career, but I have concluded that consistently with both my ministerial and professional obligations to support and uphold the rule of law, I have no option other than to tender my resignation.”

Earlier, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps defended the Prime Minister, saying that he did not knowingly break the law.

Asked on Sky News how Mr Johnson can “possibly remain in office”, Mr Shapps said: “Everyone is human, people sometimes make mistakes.”

On whether Mr Johnson misled Parliament, Mr Shapps told ITV’s Good Morning Britain programme: “I don’t think he knowingly broke the laws when he came to Parliament. We now know that the Metropolitan Police have said that he shouldn’t have stepped into the Cabinet Room when staff had organised a surprise.

“I don’t think he came to Parliament thinking that that breached the rules.”