Bitter barbs as Johnson sacked ‘snake’ Gove

Michael Gove told Boris Johnson: “If anyone should be stepping back, it’s you,” when he was sacked on Wednesday, his ex-wife has claimed.

In her regular column in the Daily Mail, Sarah Vine said the former levelling up secretary responded with the barbed one-liner when Mr Johnson informed him he was being sacked.

The surprise move was the latest twist in the often difficult relationship between the two men.

Aberdeen-born Mr Gove is thought to have been among those who told the prime minister that it was time for him to quit, even as Mr Johnson fought to remain Tory leader.

Ms Vine, who separated from Mr Gove last year, said she spoke to her former partner shortly after he was sacked.

She said she was told about his sacking by Rachel Johnson, the prime minister’s sister.

In her column, Ms Vine quotes Mr Gove directly: “The prime minister rang me a few minutes ago and told me it was time for me to step back. I said, respectfully, prime minister, if anyone should be stepping back, it is you.”’

The sacking of Mr Gove, and his branding as a “snake” by Downing Street sources, was seen by many as a long-awaited revenge following his quip that his 2016 sabotage of Boris Johnson’s Tory leadership bid had been like an “unexploded bomb going off in my hands”.

He was speaking from a position of safety last

October, while still in charge of the prime minister’s levelling up agenda, but the joke highlighted the enduring uneasiness of the pair’s relationship.

“One of the things about committing political suicide is that you always live to regret it,” he added.

The drastic move, which saw Mr Gove quit as Mr Johnson’s campaign manager, put him on a collision course with his former friend and effectively forced him to pull out.

His view at the time was that Mr Johnson was incapable of “leading the party and the country in the way that I would have hoped”.

The pair were still basking in the glow of the victory of the Vote Leave referendum campaign, upon which they worked shoulder to shoulder.

However, after three years and a rehabilitative stint as environment secretary under Theresa May, he was welcomed back into the fold of his former rival’s first cabinet.

Mr Gove, who was thought to have told the PM on Wednesday morning that his time was up, was a notable absence from PMQs later in the day.

No 10 sources confirmed Mr Gove had been sacked in the evening, with the BBC reporting that one source had said: “You cannot have a snake, who is not with you on any of the big arguments, who then gleefully briefs the press that he has called for the leader to go.”

Former friends, but it was an uneasy relationship.