Boris Johnson has sent “all unredacted WhatsApps” directly to the COVID inquiry ahead of a legal battle between the probe and the government over access to the messages.

The former prime minister said he would “like to do the same” with texts that are on an old mobile phone he stopped using due to security concerns in May 2021 – more than a year after the pandemic began.

The move means Mr Johnson is bypassing the Cabinet Office, which has launched a legal challenge against the request from the inquiry to hand over the material in unredacted form.

The Cabinet Office said there are “important principles at stake” – such as the issue of privacy.

But in a letter to the chair of the COVID inquiry, Baroness Hallett, Mr Johnson said: “While I understand the government’s position, I am not willing to let my material become a test case for others when I am perfectly content for the inquiry to see it.”

Mr Johnson said he was handing over “all unredacted WhatsApps I provided to the Cabinet Office” and said he has asked them to hand over his notebooks.

He said he would “like to do the same with any material that may be on an old phone which I have previously been told I can no longer access safely”.

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He said that advice should be “test[ed]”, and he has asked the government for their help to turn on the device securely to hand over the material.

Rishi Sunak has been facing accusations of a cover-up over the refusal to hand over all of Mr Johnson’s unredacted material to the inquiry, which is examining the UK’s response to the pandemic.

Mr Johnson, who was prime minister during the crisis, had already made clear he was happy to adhere to the inquiry chairwoman’s request and earlier this week gave messages and notebooks to the Cabinet Office.

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The Liberal Democrats are tabling a motion to call on the government to release the COVID inquiry messages

But ahead of a deadline to hand it over at 4pm yesterday, the government stood by its argument that the documents being sought are “unambiguously irrelevant” and cover matters “unconnected to the government’s handling of COVID”.

Ministers are now gearing up for a high-profile legal battle after taking the unusual step of bringing a judicial review of Baroness Hallett’s order to release the documents.

Breaking a section 21 order – made by the inquiry to obtain the messages – could see the government face criminal proceedings.

Government making ‘bad mistake’

Science minister George Freeman predicted that the legal challenge was likely to fail while Lord Barwell, who served in Theresa May’s administration, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Some of the (WhatsApp) messages might be a bit embarrassing but, nonetheless, I think they (the government) are making a bad mistake.”

The Cabinet Office has said it is “fully committed” to its obligations to the inquiry, but that it was “firmly of the view that the inquiry does not have the power to request unambiguously irrelevant information that is beyond the scope of this investigation”.

However the legal practice representing the COVID-19 Bereaved Families for Justice group, Broudie Jackson Canter, said the move showed “utter disregard for the inquiry”.

Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner accused the prime minister of “a desperate attempt to withhold evidence” and said the public “deserve answers, not another cover-up.”

And the Liberal Democrats have announced that they will table a humble address motion – a piece of parliamentary procedure used by opposition parties to force the government’s hand – in the Commons next week calling for “all material” requested by the national virus probe to be released.