Boris: I’ll have to accept any job if Remain wins
POLITICAL EDITOR BORIS JOHNSON believes that he must accept “any job” offered to him after the referendum if the Remain campaign wins, he has told allies.
Sources said that Mr Johnson’s view is that it will be politically impossible for him to turn down a ministerial job offered to him by David Cameron – even if it is considered to be an “insubstantial role”.
It is believed that Downing Street is considering either Work and Pensions or Education as likely destinations for Mr Johnson.
A number of the former mayor of London’s allies are urging him to turn down any job offer and “take on Cameron and [George] Osborne from the outside”. Mr Cameron on Friday strongly hinted that he intends to offer Mr Johnson a Cabinet position in the coming months.
“I have always said, without giving too much away, I’m a believer in having all your stars on the pitch,” he said. “Boris Johnson is a very significant figure in the Conservative Party. He was a very effective mayor of London.”
It had previously been thought that Mr Cameron would offer Mr Johnson one of the “great offices of state” in the Home Office, Foreign Office or Treasury. However, Mr Cameron has become increasingly angry with Mr Johnson during the referendum campaign and has in recent days sanctioned a series of personal attacks on the former mayor of London by pro-EU Conservative Cabinet ministers.
Many of Mr Cameron’s allies accept that if he decided to offer Mr Johnson no job in a post-referendum reshuffle, it would be seen as an act of revenge and simply bolster his popularity.
Current thinking is that Mr Johnson could be offered a “lesser” role, which he would then be under pressure to accept. One ally of Mr Johnson’s said: “He thinks he’ll have to take any job they offer him. It’s a difficult position for Boris to be in.”
Confidantes of Mr Johnson believe that if he eventually wants to challenge for the leadership of the Conservative Party, he needs to show MPs and voters that he has the ability to run a government department.
“He needs to do a big job to show people in the party and at home that he’s up to it,” a source said. “This reshuffle – if it happens – is a huge The ORB poll put support for Brexit up four points to 55 per cent, with Remain down to 45 per cent.
The online poll of 2,000 people for ICM poll of 2,000 people had 48 per cent wanting to go as 43 said stay.
Ipsos-Mori’s poll revealed 58 per cent of voters say Brexit would not affect their standard of living while 22 per cent think it would hurt and 11 per cent think they will be better off. A majority (56 per cent) expected investment from the EU into the UK to fall, and 46 per cent anticipate our exports to the EU will drop.
A University of Aberdeen poll of fishermen found 92 per cent back Leave. decision for Boris. Turn a job down and he looks obstinate and bitter. Take it and he risks being trapped exactly where Cameron and Osborne want him”. The source added: “Work and Pensions would be an easy way for them to put Boris in a job that would inevitably make him deeply unpopular.”
Other friends of Mr Johnson’s remain hopeful that Mr Cameron will feel he has to offer Mr Johnson a “big job”.
If he was to hand Mr Johnson a “great office of state”, his most likely destination would be the Home Office.
That would allow Theresa May, the current Home Secretary, to move to the Foreign Office, a position she is understood to covet. Philip Hammond, the current Foreign Secretary, is expected to be demoted or moved from Cabinet.
Meanwhile, Remain campaigners have stepped up their attacks. Yesterday a group of pro-EU supporters, dressed in “Boris masks” and blond wigs, ambushed a Leave campaign event in Essex. Iain Duncan Smith, the Tory former Cabinet minister, was surrounded by the Remain supporters when he stepped off the Vote Leave campaign’s red battle bus in Harlow. They followed Mr Duncan Smith, shouting: “He cut benefits – what else is he going to cut?” and “Where is Boris?”. Mr Duncan Smith said he was “astonished” at the tactics.