Boris told Cameron that Brexit would be crushed... minutes before backing Leave

BORIS Johnson told David Cameron he believed the Out campaign would be ‘crushed’ just minutes before coming out for Leave.

The former London mayor ‘flipflopped’ over his EU referendum stance on the weekend before he made his decision, according to Mr Cameron’s spin chief.

Mr Johnson was ‘in turmoil’ and ‘depressed’ over which way he was going to jump, and at one point he ‘wobbled’ and texted the then PM to say was going to back Remain.

In one of his messages, he said Brexit would be ‘ crushed like the toad beneath the harrow’ – a quote from a Rudyard Kipling poem. The revelations about Mr Johnson’s ‘dithering’ are in a book by Sir Craig Oliver, Mr Cameron’s former director of communications.

It shows that Mr Cameron believed that, despite coming out for Leave, Mr Johnson had always been a ‘confused Inner’.

Mr Johnson, now Foreign Secretary, announced which way he was going to go on Sunday, February 21. The previous day, at 9am, he sent the Prime Minister a message saying he would be backing Out during a meeting Mr Cameron was holding in Downing Street with George Osborne, Sir Craig and others.

Sir Craig reveals: ‘He then reads it out. It begins by saying how he has been a tortured soul, but he has to “go with his heart”. He suggests at the end we will end up staying in.’

But four hours later, Mr Johnson appeared to have had second thoughts. Sir Craig wrote: ‘There’s been another text suggesting he might change his mind and back Remain.’

The next day, Mr Johnson made his decision public in a shambolic press conference outside his home in Islington, North London.

Sir Craig said Mr Cameron ‘received a final text from Boris just nine minutes before he told the world’.

A spokesman for Mr Johnson declined to comment last night.