John and Maureen Morgan

GRIEVING family members who have lost loved ones in the pandemic are calling on Boris Johnson to resign – describing his actions as a “disgrace” in the wake of the Downing Street garden party scandal.

The Prime Minister said this week that nobody had told him that the gathering he attended in May 2020 might be in breach of the rules his own government had imposed on the public to stop the spread of Covid – maintaining that he believed it was a “work event”.

But relatives of those who died alone in hospital without anybody to hold their hand have spoken of their anger at what they see as hypocrisy.

Jason Morgan, who lost both his parents to Covid within a week of each other, said: “I wasn’t allowed in hospital and they weren’t allowed a proper funeral. “We’ve got people who make the rules but don’t care about the rules. People might now start saying, ‘Why should we bother [to follow the rules] when they don’t?’”

John Morgan, 81, and his wife Maureen, 83, were buried on the same day after dying from Covid a ward apart at the Whittington Hospital.

They had been married for 60 years after first meeting as children playing in Rochester Mews, Camden Town.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson

Their deaths came just two months after receiving a letter from the Queen celebrating their diamond wedding anniversary.

Their son said: “Even if Boris Johnson left, will it make any difference? They all have the same attitude. Does it matter who else comes in? Who can you trust now?

“It has made me angry and it’s frustrating, knowing I couldn’t go to visit my parents in hospital, and they [Downing Street] are having parties in back gardens. Everyone who went to that party is to blame.

The buck stops with him [the PM], but what about everyone who was there?” Jason marked the one-year anniversary of his mother’s death yesterday (Wednesday) by visiting her at the crematorium, and his father the following Wednesday.

As Mr Johnson’s future continued to be the subject of intense speculation this week, other relatives of Covid patients from Camden who died had a simple message: “Boris must go.”

One devastated mother, who lost her son just weeks before the garden event, but who wished to remain anonymous to protect her daughter and grandson from further upset, said she was in an undertaker’s office organising her son’s funeral on the day Mr Johnson was at the party.

She said the Prime Minister’s apology “wouldn’t cut it”, adding: “He’s a coward who’s passing the buck. “He should step down ASAP. He’s hurt a lot of bereaved families.”

Mr Johnson had told MPs he “believed implicitly that this was a work event” but admitted there were “millions and millions of people who simply would not see it that way”. He has responded to calls to resign from opposition MPs by asking them to wait for the conclusions of an inquiry into alleged government events during lockdown.

Former health secretary Matt Hancock resigned in June after being found to have broken the rules during lockdown, while Mr Johnson’s communications chief, Allegra Stratton, departed in December after being caught on film joking about wine and cheese parties during a mock press conference.