THE BUM’S RUSH
Party chiefs launch campaign to stop Boris becoming next PM.. and call it Operation Ars*
SCOTTISH Tories have launched a secret campaign codenamed “Operation Arse” to stop Boris Johnson becoming the party leader.
With internal polling showing that Johnson as Prime Minister would reverse Tory gains made under Ruth Davidson, Scots politicians have joined the bid to halt the ex-foreign secretary.
A senior party source said: “We called it that so we’d all be clear who we were talking about.”
As well as pressing their MPs to vote
against Johnson in any potential leadership contest, the organisers want to take the message to constituency association members that Johnson would lose them votes in Scotland.
According to senior Tories, internal polling reflects the findings of surveys carried out by former Tory peer Lord Ashcroft. An Ashcroft poll at the weekend gave Theresa May a 54 per cent to 46 per cent lead over Jeremy Corbyn.
But pitted against Johnson, the Labour leader split voters 50-50.
Party strategists who have analysed the findings conclude that Johnson would cost the Conservatives the 12 Westminster gains they made in 2017 and endanger Davidson’s bid to capture control of Holyrood in the 2021 Scottish elections.
The “Operation Arse” plan to stop a Johnson bid for No10 at the Scottish border came as the chief Brexiteer felt the full force of a leadership backlash at the Tory conference in Birmingham.
Ahead of Johnson’s appearance at a conference fringe today, Chancellor Philip Hammond used a newspaper interview to launch an attack on his former cabinet colleague’s chances of taking the top job.
Hammond said: “My position – I repeat it today – is
I don’t believe that will happen.” He suggested Johnson could not do “grown-up politics”, had “no grasp of detail” and that the former mayor of London’s greatest achievement was introducing “Boris bikes” to the capital.
Johnson had used a weekend interview to call May’s Brexit policy “deranged” and proposed his “Super Canada” free trade deal as an alternative.
He is due to speak today to a packed meeting, where plans to ambush him with jeering have reportedly been laid.
With Brexit and jostling for the future leadership dominating the conference, Johnson continued to play the buffoon yesterday when he was pictured appearing to mock May by running through what looked like a field of wheat.
While campaigning in last year’s general election, she said the naughtiest thing she had done was run through a field of wheat.
Asked to comment a senior Scots Tory said: “Yes, we chose the right name for the plan to stop him.”