Bojo No. 10 ‘vendetta target’
May’s aide ‘leaked a letter from Johnson... the man he blames for seat loss’
THE fragile Cabinet truce over Brexit was blown apart last night as a key ally of Boris Johnson mounted an attack on No 10.
The senior MP accused one of Theresa May’s most trusted aides of deliberately leaking a letter which the Foreign Secretary sent to the Prime Minister.
The ally accused Mrs May’s chief of staff, Gavin Barwell, of releasing Mr Johnson’s comments that played down the risks of a hard border in Ireland.
The MP said the leak was designed to put Mr Johnson in his place before the Prime Minister’s keynote Brexit speech on Friday – and claimed Mr Barwell was motivated by a personal dislike of the Foreign Secretary over his pro-Brexit stance.
Last night, Mr Johnson’s spokesman described the ally’s remarks as a ‘nonsense claim’ about a ‘half-baked and misleading leak’.
In his letter to Mrs May, Mr Johnson had argued that the objective of the Brexit talks should not be to maintain ‘no border’ on Ireland after Brexit. He also sought to play down the ‘exaggerated impression’ of how important checks were at EU external borders.
Many observers believe a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic could undermine the Good Friday peace process.
After the contentious parts of the letter were leaked on Wednesday, No10 stressed that Mrs May was determined to avoid a hard border.
The ally told The Mail on Sunday that Boris’s camp suspected former MP Mr Barwell of leaking the letter to stymie any potential rebellion by the Foreign Secretary. ‘It was a flush out,’ the MP said. ‘We suspect Gavin. He subscribes to the view that Brexit is a total f ***** g disaster. He blames Brexit and Boris for losing his seat [Croydon Central] at the last Election.’
The ally also claimed that Mrs May had intervened personally to stop Mr Johnson releasing the entire letter, saying: ‘It was a very partial leak of the letter.
‘Boris asked to put the whole thing out to put the record straight. But the Prime Minister explicitly banned that.’ The row destroys the Cabinet’s Brexit truce only days after it was agreed.
Mrs May had brokered a united front ahead of her keynote speech on Friday, which set out her aims from the Brexit negotiations.
She appeased ‘hard’ Brexiteers, led by Mr Johnson, by restating her determination to leave the customs union and strike trade deals. Remainers were mollified by a vow to remain aligned with EU rules in certain key sectors.
It is the latest outbreak of hostilities between No 10 and the group of loyalists around Mr Johnson.
When he was first appointed as Foreign Secretary in 2016, it was claimed Mrs May had deliberately ‘set him up to fail’ by putting him in a job which would expose his diplomatic limitations – and keep him out of the country.
Mutual suspicion increased in the wake of Mrs May’s snap General Election disaster last year, after No 10 discovered that Mr Johnson’s aides had been encouraging talk of a leadership bid. It intensified in the run-up to Mrs May’s Florence speech on Brexit last September when Mr Johnson published his own ‘vision’ of the nation’s future.
Last night, a spokesman for Mr Johnson described the allegations by one of his allies as ‘a nonsense claim from an anonymous quote about a half-baked and misleading leak that has been totally superseded by the Prime Minister’s excellent speech on Friday’.
Mr Barwell said: ‘These claims are ridiculous and totally untrue.’
‘Ridiculous and totally untrue’