Boris told: Put a sock in it!
Johnson’s allies urge restraint after fury over suicide vest jibe and private life
FRIENDS of Boris Johnson have urged him to ‘rein in’ his outspoken style amid fears it could dent his leadership hopes.
Allies of the former foreign secretary defended him on Sunday after he came under fire for likening Theresa May’s Brexit strategy to putting the UK in a ‘suicide vest’.
But yesterday, several supporters acknowledged he had overstepped the mark and risked damaging his cause.
Some friends of the 54- year- old also said they felt ‘bruised’ over wall-towall media reports about his links to former Tory communications chief Carrie Symonds.
Reports of his relationship with the glamorous 30-year-old emerged at the weekend just 48 hours after he confirmed he was getting divorced from Marina, his wife of 25 years.
One friend of Mr Johnson said: ‘I was totally blindsided by it. It’s not helpful when you are trying to convince people he’s changed his ways.’ Downing Street yesterday slapped down Mrs May’s leadership rival for his ‘suicide vest’ comments.
The PM’s official spokesman told reporters: ‘This is not language the Prime Minister would choose to use, but I do not plan on giving this article any more oxygen.’ Some supporters of Mr Johnson also warned that his language risked being counterproductive.
MP Crispin Blunt, who endorsed Mr Johnson’s 2016 leadership bid, told Sky News: ‘I wouldn’t have put it in those terms. I am quite certain Boris regrets the use of that particularly inapt metaphor.’
And fellow Tory, Anne-Marie Trevelyan, who has also backed Mr Johnson to become PM in the past, described his intervention as ‘fairly unpleasant’.
Mrs Trevelyan told the BBC: ‘It is not the language I would have used. He wanted to make his point in a shocking way, as he seems to quite a lot at the moment. I don’t think Boris’s language was appropriate – it was offensive.’ Another senior Eurosceptic, who is close to Mr Johnson, said his reference to a suicide vest was ‘very difficult to defend’.
The MP added: ‘Boris is absolutely right about Chequers, but his language on this occasion was not helpful. It is very difficult to defend and makes it easier for our opponents to attack – I think he realises that he needs to rein it in.’
But Mr Johnson was backed by the Eurosceptic MP Simon Clarke, who said: ‘The substance of what Boris said was absolutely right. I am clear that the Chequers deal is not the right way forward. It is a state of denial to think Chequers can get through parliament. Labour are not going to pull the Government’s chestnuts out of the fire.’
The warning came as Tory splits over Brexit deepened.
The campaign group Stand Up for Brexit announced 25 MPs have now signed a public pledge to oppose Chequers, with the number rising at almost one a day.
Signatories include the former cabinet ministers Iain Duncan Smith, Priti Patel and Owen Paterson and the prominent Eurosceptics Jacob Rees-Mogg and Steve Baker.
Mr Baker, a former Brexit minister, said as many as 80 Tory MPs were willing to vote down the Chequers plan and said Mrs May would create a ‘ catastrophic split’ in the party if she continued to pursue it.
‘It is absolutely no pleasure whatsoever to me to acknowledge that, but I look at the mood of colleagues and the mood of the Conservative Party in the country and I am gravely concerned for the future of our party,’ he said.
Last night, Downing Street started a fresh charm offensive designed to win over wavering MPs. Mrs May’s chief of staff Gavin Barwell and communications chief Robbie Gibb began a series of dinners at which MPs are offered briefings on the Chequers plan and are given the opportunity to feed back.
‘Very difficult to defend’