Johnson’s Brexit ‘brain’ Cummings set to resign

london — Dominic Cummings, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s most powerful adviser, will step down by year-end, reducing the sway of Brexit hardliners as Johnson tries to recast his premiership after a series of coronavirus failures.

Cummings, who masterminded the 2016 Brexit referendum vote and Johnson’s 2019 landslide election win, told the BBC that he wanted to be largely redundant by the end of this year, once Britain has left informal membership of the European Union.

The exit of Johnson’s presiding right hand man marks one of the most significant changes to the prime minister’s inner circle to date: Cummings was cast by some as Johnson’s “brain” — a figure who wielded pivotal influence. A committed Brexiteer, he was seen by European diplomats as a hardline influence on Johnson over Brexit and the proponent of Madman Theory — a reference to ex-US president Richard Nixon’s attempt to convince the Soviet Union that he was irrational during the Cold War.

Cummings, 48, educated at Oxford and married to the daughter of a baronet, scorned the British political establishment and hurled barbs at reporters and cabinet ministers alike.

He was cast in the Spitting Image satirical puppet show as an alien who repeatedly threatened Johnson with resignation — and sometimes asked to eat his child. The BBC cited an unidentified senior Downing Street source as saying that Cummings would be “out of government” by Christmas. Another unidentified source told the BBC that Cummings “jumped because otherwise he would be pushed soon”.

Cummings told the BBC that “rumours of me threatening to resign are invented, rumours of me asking others to resign are invented”.

Johnson is trying to clinch a lastminute trade deal with the EU, with almost a trillion dollars of commerce at stake, though he is under pressure from Conservative lawmakers to recast his administration when Brexit is completed.

Britain formally left the EU on January31 though remains in its single market and customs union under transitional arrangements until year-end, with difficult talks on a future trade relationship now in the end game.—