According to UK correspondent Lia van Bekhoven, Zahawi has repeatedly avoided clarifying his tax returns. “He kept quiet about it whenever asked about the jobs he was offered by the Conservative government,” Van Bekhoven said. “There was an investigation into Zahawi for tax evasion, and he hadn’t reported it.”
He had previously already paid a fine to the taxman, which he owed around five million pounds. “And that was also the excuse Zahawi used every time,” Van Bekhoven continues. He said he always thought he was being asked all kinds of things about what he would do about his finances, but he never saw it as an official investigation. That’s the distinction he made.’
Right away
According to Van Bekhoven, the Conservative Party believed this to some extent. “By the mouth of Rishi Sunak, but it lasted until yesterday morning,” he says. “Then he was summarily fired.”
And the British media are furious. The main question is whether Sunak should have done it or whether he should have done it sooner. Van Bekhoven: ‘Sunak’s defense is that he wanted to wait for the internal process to establish whether the rumors about the party president and his tax affair were true or not. Sunak’s critics say he should have suspended Zahawi when the rumors surfaced.’
Other than rumors
But, Van Bekhoven points out, it went beyond mere rumours. “The Conservative Party gives the impression that it did not scrutinize Zahawi’s financial affairs before he was appointed to his posts by various prime ministers,” he says.
However, Van Bekhoven does not dare to say whether the internal crisis among conservatives could get bigger and deeper. “That’s the interesting thing. Zahawi is just an offshoot of a problem that has actually plagued Conservatives since Boris Johnson. “What they also call here the ‘Long Boris’ – the political equivalent of long covid: nepotism, mushy relationships, everything has a much longer life than the original culprit.”
Leads the work
Van Bekhoven thinks this is also why rival Labor leads by more than 20 percentage points in the polls. “And this is particularly bad because Sunak – when he took office three months ago – promised in his very first speech in Downing Street to put an end to those financial scandals,” he concludes. “But he’ll be stuck longer than he’d like. The scandals of the Johnson era weren’t just cleared up.’