So much for the Brexit brotherhood: David Davis wanted PM to sack BoJo
BREXIT Secretary David Davis wanted Theresa May to sack Boris Johnson for his eve of Tory conference Brexit revolt, it emerged last night.
The Mail on Sunday has established that Mr Davis made it known to senior party figures that he believed the Foreign Secretary should be fired for setting out his ‘red lines’ on Brexit in a newspaper article, and then again in a pre-conference interview.
Mrs May refused to do so on the grounds that it could backfire by causing an even bigger Conservative split.
The disclosure that Mr Davis wanted his fellow Brexiteer kicked out of the Cabinet came as some observers expressed ‘surprise’ at Mr Davis’s partying at last week’s conference.
According to well-placed sources, he was ‘high spirited’ at a number of events.
Mr David attended a reception held by the party’s powerful 1922 committee on Sunday evening. One source said: ‘Davis looked as if he had enjoyed a good dinner. He was throwing his arms around, with his entourage trailing in his wake.’
No 10 was then irritated by remarks which Mr Davis made to journalists the following day during which he said he planned to retire in 2019 and leave Mr Johnson to steer the UK through the Brexit transitional period. Mrs May laughed off his ‘bar room’ comments as a joke on Tuesday.
But outgoing Mr Davis was not finished with his conference socialising. Later that evening, he downed bubbly at the Spectator magazine’s party in the Midland Hotel, alongside fellow Cabinet Ministers, newspapers editors and diplomats. A friend of Mr Davis said: ‘David enjoys socialising. For anyone to criticise that is pathetic. It’s not as if he is like Juncker’ – a reference to the famously bibulous European Commission chief. There is no suggestion Mr Davis drank excessively.
Earlier this year Mr Davis apologised after private text messages emerged in which he insulted Diane Abbott following a late-night encounter between the pair in a Commons bar.
A spokesman for Mr Davis said that the Boris claim was ‘tittletattle’ and there was no suggestion that he had over-indulged during the conference.
‘He looked like he had enjoyed a good dinner’