BORIS V DAVIS, IT’S WAR!
They’re battling to be the Brexiteer pick for PM. Davis says Bojo’s a busted flush and should stand aside. Boris’s fans say his rival is ‘out of his depth’
DAVID Davis has written off Boris Johnson’s chances of ever becoming Tory leader and is planning to mount his own bid for No 10, friends of the former Brexit Secretary have told The Mail on Sunday.
Mr Davis – who joined the ex-Foreign Secretary in resigning from the Cabinet over Theresa May’s Chequers plan – has argued privately that Mr Johnson does not have enough support among Tory MPs to win a leadership contest if Mrs May goes. He regards himself as the Brexiteers’ natural ‘candidate of choice’.
But the claims have angered Mr Johnson’s supporters, with one telling this newspaper last night that Mr Davis was ‘painfully out of his depth’ and insisting he would be a ‘disaster’ as Prime Minister.
Mr Davis’s friends claim Mr Johnson is struggling to build a large enough base of MPs prepared to vote for him in a contest. Although he remains the clear
‘People realise Boris can’t win now’
favourite among Tory party members, who have the final say in a contest, it is the MPs who vote to select the two candidates they have to choose between.
Mr Davis’s embryonic campaign team believes Tory MPs have been ‘alienated’ by Mr Johnson’s attacks on the Prime Minister and what they claim is an attempt to use party activists to pressure MPs into voting for him.
One ally of Mr Davis said: ‘People realise Boris can’t win now. There’s no way he can get through the parliamentary party.’
But a furious supporter of Mr Johnson said: ‘David Davis and his allies are telling everyone who will listen that he can be the “father of the nation” and deliver Brexit.
‘MPs haven’t forgotten that for almost two years he was Olly Robbins’s [Mrs May’s civil service Brexit adviser] useful idiot and was totally outmanoeuvred by the civil service. If he was so painfully out of his depth as Brexit Secretary, how could he possibly be considered for Prime Minister – it would be a disaster and everyone knows it.’
Mr Robbins repeatedly clashed with Mr Davis. The civil servant is disliked by Brexiteers, who regard him as a pro-Remain establishment figure set on thwarting Brexit.
There has been bad blood between the Davis and Johnson camps since their resignations in July. Mr Davis made his dramatic announcement at midnight on the Sunday after the Brexit plan was agreed at Chequers on the Friday. Mr Johnson followed 15 hours later.
Allies of Mr Johnson said Mr Davis suggested they should announce they were leaving the Government in a co-ordinated double act but the former Foreign Secretary declined.
The Davis camp dismissed this version of events as nonsense and claim Mr Johnson came up with the idea.
Mr Davis’s original plan had been to position himself as a temporary leader ready to take over if Mrs May was forced to resign, allowing him to steer the country through Brexit before stepping down and allowing Mr Johnson to compete in a leadership contest. However, he now thinks it is in the ‘public interest’ to push for the leadership.
Mr Johnson called yesterday for Mrs May to rebuff the European Union’s demand for a special ‘backstop’ deal to avoid a hard border in Ireland after Brexit, saying it would be the UK’s ‘great- est humiliation’ since the Suez crisis of the 1950s.
He said it was ‘now completely obvious that the Government made a dreadful mistake’ in bowing to the EU’s demands for the backstop, adding: ‘The only way to put things back on the right track is to ditch the backstop and then to chuck Chequers.
‘The fatal error was not to challenge the EU’s position that the only way of avoiding a hard border on the island of Ireland – an objective we all share – is for Northern Ireland to have the same regulations for trade as Ireland and the rest of the EU.
‘The Government well understands how weak the backstop makes its future negotiating hand – which is why it has proposed Chequers. If we let this go it will be the greatest national humiliation since Suez.’
A source close to Mr Johnson said: ‘As Boris has consistently stated, he wants a change of policy, not leader. Chequers is a bad deal for this country– it would leave the UK as a permanent EU colony.’
‘Davis would be a disaster as PM’