‘If you’re going to die, go down fighting’, the PM told friends as his assassins closed in
The gripping inside story of tense last hours in the No10 bunker
YESTERDAY, at 12.30pm, Boris marched to the lectern outside No 10, clutching a hastily written resignation speech. His delivery was upbeat, but I’m told that for all his boosterish manner, he was furious. Behind him, in the Downing Street bunker, his loyalists were white with rage at the plotters who had brought him down.
One senior source did not mince their words to me: ‘The Tory Party has gone totally “schizo”. Every so often it gets a mania, and that’s what’s happened. It’s been like a Salem witch trial or when a craze sweeps through a girls’ school. In the end, the boss was left with no alternative but to fold the tent – but he has been swept out on a wave of hysteria.’
How had it come to this? On Tuesday night, after his Health Secretary Sajid Javid and his Chancellor Rishi Sunak had both quit the Government within minutes, the Greased Piglet had vowed to slip from the butcher’s block once again.
And even as Wednesday progressed, and the initial trickle of resignations turned into a deluge (46 by midnight), he was still vowing – publicly and privately – to fight on.
As rumours of a fresh no-confidence vote and leadership challenge swelled on Wednesday afternoon, Boris insisted to ministers begging him to stand down that he was going nowhere. ‘If you are going to die, go down fighting,’ he reportedly told friends.
At about 7pm, a clearly exhausted Boris held his weekly half-hour audience with the Queen by telephone.
Even if Her Majesty did not directly put the question to him, it is a safe bet that her officials will have challenged their Downing Street counterparts as to whether the PM could realistically build a viable Cabinet after such a wounding series of ministerial losses.
But the truth was – at that moment – nobody knew.
Clearly, it was going to be tough to carry on. Key ministers had told him explicitly that the game was up. I understand Boris was particularly struck when Home Secretary Priti Patel, one of his most loyal supporters, had visited him earlier that day to tell him she thought it was all over. Unlike many of her Cabinet colleagues, preening before the cameras, Patel used a side door to Downing Street and avoided the press scrum.
‘Priti told him she would serve him in whatever capacity and for however long he wanted,’ says a source. ‘But she thought he could not go on much longer. It was quite emotional. They will always be best of friends.’
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps had been keeping a spreadsheet charting the PM’s supporters.
‘Grant told him the data showed he was going to lose badly [in a confidence vote],’ said another source. ‘He said it would look undignified if he tried to stay on.’ Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng and Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis had also urged Boris – in vain – to stand down.
By 8pm, Boris knew he had hours to form a government, or he was done for. He moved with his dwindling band of allies into Downing Street’s Thatcher Room, in which a large portrait of Mrs T gazes down from above the mantelpiece.
Officials ordered a takeaway: Vegetarian curry with lentils, naan bread, samosas and poppadoms. (Meat, it had been reasoned, would be more difficult to digest – and the day’s events had been hard enough to swallow.) Unlike when Keir Starmer fancies an Indian, there was no alcohol.
In the room were Boris, Cabinet Secretary Simon Case and Guto Harri, the communications secretary the PM has known since their Oxford days. Also present were deputy chief of staff Ben Gascoigne – a veteran of Boris’s time as London mayor – and interim chief of staff Samantha Cohen, a former press secretary to the Queen.
If the Palace had indeed demanded to know whether the PM could form a government, she will have had to give them an answer.
Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries, Cabinet Office minister Nigel Adams and Northern Ireland minister Conor Burns were also present: Boris loyalists, all.
Fittingly, a book called ‘Conundrum’ lay on the oak table – which has a storied history. It was commissioned in 2013 by then-prime minister David Cameron for the G8 summit in Northern Ireland.
As Case helped himself to food, Boris piped up: ‘Heck! You know who was sitting around this table with Cameron, Angela Merkel, Barack Obama and the rest of them? It was Vladimir Putin! He was sitting right here.’ There was muffled laughter. The joke eased the tension: Everyone present knew that despite his vow to fight on, these could be the last hours of his premiership.
So: How to form a government when you’ve lost dozens of ministers in a matter of hours?
Vacant posts had to be filled, and a shortlist of possible Tory MPs compiled. The position of Welsh secretary was newly vacant after Simon Hart had delivered a terse resignation letter that evening.
A replacement was found in no time in the form of Welsh-born former justice secretary Robert Buckland. As he marshalled his troops, Boris was seen punching the air, raising his hands above his head, walking around the room saying to himself: ‘We can do this!’ At one point, he declared to an ally: ‘It’s not over. Is it over? Let’s get it done.’
Shortly before 9pm, Boris broke off
‘It would look undignified if he tried to stay’ ‘The party will move to get rid of you’
the talks to make a crucial telephone call. Earlier that day, Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove visited the PM, warning him in a testy exchange that his position was ‘no longer sustainable’. Gove said to Boris: ‘The party will move to get rid of you.’
He gave the PM a deadline of 9pm that evening to announce his resignation – or Gove would quit the Government and take other senior ministers with him.
At 8.58pm, Boris lifted the phone to Gove. He accused the veteran minister of ‘treachery’ – and sacked him before he could quit.
‘It was over in four minutes,’ said a source.
The undignified dismissal means that Gove has now been sacked by three prime ministers – having been kicked out of the Cabinet by David Cameron and Theresa May.
When Boris told the room that he
had dismissed Gove, there were broad smiles and someone even shouted: ‘Not before time!’ One person who was there said: ‘The boss had a glint in his eye and said we need a new name on the board next to “Levelling Up Secretary”.’
To the surprise of many, Greg Clark, a longstanding critic of Boris over Brexit, was found to fill Gove’s shoes.
As the evening wore on, the Government jigsaw was being steadily completed. ‘A new Cabinet was taking shape,’ says a source. ‘His staff told him that emails were pouring in from across the country, urging him to stay and fight. I suspect they never told him about the emails that said: “For heaven’s sake, man, go!”’
When the meeting finished at 11pm, Boris went upstairs to the Downing Street flat, telling people he was in a position to fight on.
He had spent hours under the iron gaze of Mrs Thatcher – a symbol he will have immediately understood. Notoriously, Thatcher was ousted by her own Cabinet in 1990. But it was her husband, Denis, who urged her to quit, saying: ‘You’ve done enough, old girl. You’ve done your share. For God’s sake, don’t go on any longer.’ Boris’s wife Carrie, who was in the flat with their two children, is believed to have discussed his options with him in detail.
‘Of course she did,’ says a supporter. ‘She’s not just his wife: She’s his best friend.’ Also late on Wednesday night, Boris took soundings over the phone from his father Stanley and old friends. Texts suggest he woke at 5.30am.
But despite the bullishness of the night before, it was clear that serious doubts had crept in. The newspaper front pages were dire; the broadcasters worse. Several former supporters had texted overnight to withdraw their support.
Somehow, in the hours that had passed, Boris had decided to resign. He informed at least two aides of his decision.
‘He was pumped up the night before: Raging about the ministerial resignations, about the people who let him down,’ says a wellplaced source. ‘But sometimes, when you wake up, you see things differently.’ By 6.30am, I have learnt, Boris was at his desk writing his resignation statement.
‘He will have spoken to Carrie before he started to write it. I imagine that was hugely significant,’ says an ally.
At 7.30am, Boris called another meeting in the Thatcher Room, attended by Cohen, Case, Harri, Gascoigne and deputy chief of staff David Canzini.
They listened in silence as he said: ‘It’s the will of the parliamentary Conservative party that there should be a new leader. So I have decided to resign today.’
Just over an hour later, Boris telephoned Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of the 1922 committee of backbench Tory MPs, to say he
was resigning. He also telephoned the Queen to give her the news.
The resignations continued. In one particularly hideous embarrassment, Michelle Donelan, who had been appointed Education Secretary only two nights before, delivered hers by telephone.
The shortest-lived education secretary in history, she was not in her department long enough to sit for the obligatory photographic portrait that would have hung alongside such titans of the role as Margaret Thatcher and Shirley Williams.
‘She looks completely foolish and in hindsight she was a daft appointment in the first place,’ says a source. Controversially, Donelan is entitled to three-months’ severance pay for this brief and undignified stint in high office.
Also attracting fury from Boris’s camp is former Northern Ireland secretary Brandon Lewis, who phoned Downing Street early yesterday morning to say he was going to resign – but then changed his mind and decided to stay when he realised Boris was leaving instead. Boris, I’m told, wouldn’t let him – and told him he was already gone.
In the coarse words of one Boris supporter: ‘In a crowded field, Brandon is the d*** of the week.’
Even as he faced his imminent execution, and despite his wounded pride and anger, Boris worked to raise the spirits of his allies. By 10.30am, not only had he once again assembled a full Cabinet, but the officials from Whitehall’s propriety and ethics department had even rubberstamped all the appointments. (They eventually met at 3pm – and looked rather happier than the traitor-stuff Cabinet that had assembled earlier in the week.)
Finally, it was 12.30pm, and Boris was due to give his resignation speech outside Downing Street.
‘Right,’ he barked to his team. ‘We have got a fully functioning and talented Cabinet which I think will be better than the last one. Get Sir Graham Brady on the phone and tell him I’ve changed my mind. I’m not resigning: I’ve appointed a new Cabinet!’
Jaws dropped. Could the boss possibly be serious?
Without looking back, Boris snatched up his speech and marched to the Downing Street door. It slammed shut behind him.