Boris Johnson's Chequers wedding party moved after criticism

A wedding party for Boris Johnson and his wife Carrie will no longer be held at the prime minister's country house following criticism of the venue choice.

Newspaper reports said plans had been made for a party at Chequers in July.

A No 10 source told the BBC "nothing had been 100% firmed up" and an alternative location will now be used.

Mr and Mrs Johnson were married in a low-key, private ceremony at Westminster Cathedral last year.

At the time, a Downing Street spokesperson said the couple would celebrate again with family and friends during the summer this year, with their honeymoon also delayed until then.

But plans for the wedding party came under scrutiny after Mr Johnson's dramatic resignation as Tory leader on Thursday following a rebellion by his own cabinet.

A grace-and-favour mansion set in rural south-east England, Chequers is the official country residence of the UK prime minister.

Owned by the Chequers Trust, the 16th-century Buckinghamshire manor house has an indoor swimming pool, hundreds of acres of lawns, and is used by prime ministers to entertain guests and host cabinet away days.

Mr Johnson announced his resignation but intends to stay on as prime minister until a successor is elected in a process that could take months.

Some of his critics, including former Prime Minister John Major, have urged Mr Johnson to resign immediately, but he has remained as caretaker and appointed a new cabinet.

A new Tory leader and prime minister is expected to be installed by the autumn, with Mr Johnson due to remain in office until that process has played out.

Earlier, Labour's Deputy Leader Angela Rayner suggested that Mr Johnson was only staying on because he wants "a party at Chequers for his wedding".

She said Labour would bring a motion of no confidence in Parliament before summer recess, unless the Conservative Party forced Mr Johnson out immediately.

Although the motion is likely to fail as it would need Tory support, Ms Rayner said "the fact he's trying to cling on for the next couple of months is completely unacceptable".

One newly-appointed minister, Education Secretary James Cleverly, said he had heard about reports of plans to host the wedding party at Chequers in July and did not have a problem with it.

"I think that if that [the leadership succession process] is done by that point in time, I suspect that it would be a rather generous action of the new prime minister for that to go ahead," he told the BBC.

"Private functions like that do not impose a burden on the public purse."

Last year Mr Cleverly shared a photograph of the newlywed Johnsons enjoying their reception in the garden of Downing Street following the ceremony.

Downing Street did not reveal how many guests were invited to the ceremony but 30 was the maximum number of attendees allowed under Covid-19 restrictions in England at the time.

Mr Johnson, 58, has two children with Mrs Johnson, 34, and the prime minister has been married twice before.

Mrs Johnson used to work in the Conservative Party press office and on Mr Johnson's successful campaign to be re-elected as mayor in London.

The couple were first romantically linked by the media in early 2019. In February 2020, they revealed that they were engaged and that she was pregnant with their son, Wilfred, who was born in April 2020.