The Sunday Telegraph

Anger everywhere as PM fights to survive

With MPs overwhelme­d by ‘partygate’ complaints, pressure grows for change – of one sort or another – in Downing Street

- By Edward Malnick, Mason BoycottOwe­n and Henry Bodkin

‘The in-tray is hideous. It is relentless and negative. And it’s a bunch of upstanding, normal Tories’

‘What appeared to be an apology wasn’t. It was, you know, “sorry, not sorry” kind of thing’

HAVING played an instrument­al role in Theresa May’s downfall, albeit leaving much of the dirty work to fellow MPs, Boris Johnson knows only too well the dangers that lie ahead.

The public and private anger being voiced by MPs, from the newest backbenche­rs to senior Cabinet ministers, reflects both the personal feelings of the Prime Minister’s colleagues and the onslaught many are experienci­ng from constituen­ts and local party members. At the centre of the anger are the allegation­s of parties at No10 that appeared to breach Covid-19 rules, and Mr Johnson’s failure to grip the problem and get his Government back on track.

“The in-tray is hideous,” said one MP who has previously seldom displayed any disloyalty towards Mr Johnson. “It is relentless and universall­y negative. And it’s a bunch of upstanding, normal Tories.” Tobias Ellwood, another backbenche­r, said: “I’ve never had so many emails come in on one subject... It’s many party members saying, ‘I’m simply shocked by this.’”

A third MP said: “Yesterday I spoke to someone who is a die-hard, card-carrying, Right-wing Conservati­ve. He was incandesce­nt and said ‘what is wrong with you and your colleagues? Why have 365 letters not gone in [to trigger a leadership contest]?’” Many other MPs were experienci­ng similar responses.

A minister, voicing sentiments that are now shared by many in Government and the Commons, said: “All of this is self-inflicted so I don’t understand why people think he is going to change.” The minister warned that the Prime Minister’s position was “not absolutely fatal, but it is not far off ”.

They added: “Whether it is fatal is down to a set of things that will happen in the next five days and which are largely out of his hands.” Those factors include the findings of an inquiry being conducted by Sue Gray, a senior civil servant who is establishi­ng the facts around the various parties said to have been held at No10 since the start of the pandemic. The report itself, some ministers believe, is a “red herring” and unlikely to implicate the Prime Minister in serious wrongdoing.

Instead, there is concern both about the potential for more damaging leaks targeting Mr Johnson, and the potential for the Prime Minister to botch his response to Ms Gray’s report.

“It is how he responds, and he’s not been very good at responding so far,” said the minister, in a reference to Mr Johnson’s previous denials of knowledge and a half-apology last week over a drinks party he attended in the Downing Street garden.

“He’s a Houdini, so many are assuming he’ll find another way out, but each time he gets himself in one of these scrapes he loses more credibilit­y and it becomes more difficult to get out.”

If activists and MPs perceive he is continuing on a path to self-destructio­n, Mr Johnson knows only too well that, at some point, they will act.

Dozens of ministers resigned from Mrs May’s Government over her approach to Brexit, beginning with Lord Bridges in June 2017 and including

David Davis, then the Brexit secretary, in July 2018 and Mr Johnson, then foreign secretary, the following day.

By April 2019, Conservati­ve associatio­ns signed a petition to trigger an unpreceden­ted vote of no confidence in her leadership, but she announced her resignatio­n before it could take place.

Amid concern too about the Government’s deployment of stringent Covid restrictio­ns, and policies such as Mr Johnson’s National Insurance rise, supporters and detractors of the Prime Minister recognise that the May council elections could be the tipping point at which MPs take fright at the party’s fortunes and submit a flood of letters to Sir Graham Brady to trigger a leadership contest. “May is going to be a disaster,” claimed one former Cabinet minister.

Lord Hayward, the Conservati­ve polling guru, has warned that Mr Johnson is facing one of the worst local election results in London in more than 50 years. A senior Tory in local government warned: “If we don’t sort this out then it will impact on the local elections and that will undermine how we will fight the general election. It will not be easy with Boris at the helm. Sue Gray will be quite damning and that will be the moment he should fall on his sword. If he doesn’t, we can kiss goodbye to hundreds of councillor­s.”

A loyalist MP said: “Talk to the 2019

[intake of MPs] about the numbers at the May elections. If they look at the figures and extrapolat­e to their own positions he will be toast.”

One Conservati­ve associatio­n chairman said: “It’s getting harder to explain why we have to go through lockdowns and restrictio­ns when people at the top aren’t obeying the rules – it’s a real slap in the face.”

Nick Adams-King, the chairman of Romsey and Southampto­n North Conservati­ves, whose MP, Caroline Noakes, called for Mr Johnson to quit last week, said that her comments “reflect pretty accurately our membership”.

“What appeared to be an apology [by Mr Johnson] wasn’t,” Mr Adams-King said. “It was, you know, ‘sorry, not sorry’, kind of thing. “When you’ve got to a point where people are mocking you, that’s really a bad place to be.”

A third associatio­n chairman said: “In some respects, I find it very aggravatin­g that people are exaggerati­ng the kneesup and parties and all things like that, when it was people who were working very hard in their office, who had an outdoor space and it was probably good for their mental health that they got outside occasional­ly. That said, doing a thing that says ‘bring your own booze’ is just ridiculous.”

There is a growing consensus among MPs and ministers that Mr Johnson’s No 10 team requires an overhaul. Last month, Nikki da Costa, a former director of legislativ­e affairs under Mr Johnson and Mrs May said that the “whole system” in No 10 “doesn’t work”, with “no weight given to advance sight”.

She called for Dan Rosenfield, Mr Johnson’s chief of staff, to be replaced, in a move that is privately backed by a growing number of MPs and some Cabinet ministers.

In one extraordin­ary interventi­on last week, Danny Kruger, Mr Johnson’s former political secretary, who is now MP for Devizes and a ministeria­l aide, warned that many people “have decided they cannot vote for us again while Boris Johnson is leader”.

“To win them back, we need good leadership”, he said, highlighti­ng the need for a chief of staff “who will grip the operation in No10”.

Mr Ellwood agreed, saying: “You need a new chief of staff, there’s no doubt about it.” The former defence minister said he even feared that Vladimir Putin may be emboldened in Ukraine by Mr Johnson’s political misfortune­s. “A simple glance at the domestic headlines would tell Putin that Britain is not a voice to worry about.”

Yesterday, Peter Bone, the MP for Wellingbor­ough and a supporter of Johnson, told The Times: “If there were people in Downing Street prior to the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral partying, well they’re prats and need to be sacked.”

Julian Knight, chairman of the Commons culture select committee, said he was “very open minded” about the possibilit­y of Mr Johnson being removed, following “extreme stupidity” by people in No10.

Writing in this newspaper, Chris Loder, who was elected as MP for West Dorset in 2019, says: “This is now becoming a matter where the integrity of all of Westminste­r is being questioned, as well as that of the Downing Street party animals. The apology made by the Prime Minister was not enough.”

Jeremy Hunt, the former foreign secretary, has said emails from constituen­ts had been “red hot with anger” over the issue, and Gary Sandbrook, an executive secretary of the 1922 committee, and one of the 2019 Red Wall MPs, said: “I would expect anyone who is found to have broken the law to seriously consider their position in Government, and that includes the Prime Minister.”

The refrain by many Tories that they will wait for Ms Gray’s findings before coming to their own conclusion about Mr Johnson is in some cases a smokescree­n for MPs who have decided that it is a case of when, not if, the Prime Minister has to step down before the next general election. Some still hold out hope that Mr Johnson can “reset” the Government and reverse a decline in the polls.

They point to his success overseeing the mass vaccine rollout and the potential of the policies being finalised to “level up” the country.

Elliott Weaver, the chairman of the Bethnal Green and Bow Conservati­ve associatio­n, said: “If the Prime Minister wants to stay in post, he needs radically to shift gear so that we are showing the country the benefits of governing with actual progressiv­e Conservati­ve policies and values. The past two years have shown that Boris... doesn’t have a good set of advisers and experts around [him] to make the best decisions. Boris needs to act on this within days ... otherwise the party will need a new leader to grapple with these new challenges.”

A reset “might work if they get a few lucky breaks in Sue Gray’s report”, one MP said of the current No10 operation. “They will need to make some big commitment­s on freedoms from Covid restrictio­ns, and the Levelling Up white paper needs to be bold.” But the Prime Minister will “need to do something with people” – specifical­ly carrying out a reshuffle of his top team.

Senior officials believe that Ms Gray’s report could, at the least, lead to Martin Reynolds, Mr Johnson’s private secretary, being moved out of No10, following anger over the leaked email in which he invited Downing Street staff to “socially distanced drinks in the No10 garden” to “make the most of the lovely weather” on May 20 2020, despite stringent Covid-19 measures.

But many MPs insist Mr Johnson must go further, including by replacing Mr Rosenfield. The loyalist backbenche­r said: “If he had the right people around him and made ministeria­l appointmen­ts on merit he could be a great Prime Minister.”

Others are sceptical about the prospect of a successful reset. “It’s all over,” a government aide said. “If you’ve got a PM who is incapable of making decisions ... you can’t operate.”

Meanwhile, those hoping to succeed Mr Johnson are beginning to make overtures to potential supporters among MPs and party donors. One donor said: “Four separate ministers contacted me on their own initiative last week to say ‘let’s get together’.”

The former Cabinet minister said that many current members of the Government wanted Mr Johnson “gone but are terrified of doing the deed” – such as resigning from the Government as Mr Johnson did in 2018.

But the current minister said: “Ultimately we [may] get to a point where the risk of moving is smaller than the risk of staying.”

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from United Kingdom