PM will be ousted by autumn unless he changes course, says Frost

Johnson ally says he cannot ignore unrest among MPS and must ‘get on with the job’ of regenerating Britain

BORIS JOHNSON must deliver a Conservative vision for Britain or risk being forced out by the autumn, Lord Frost, his former Brexit minister, has said.

Writing in The Daily Telegraph, the Tory peer urges the Prime Minister not to “ignore” the scale of discontent among his MPS, as revealed in Monday’s vote of confidence in his leadership.

Lord Frost predicts that another attempt to oust Mr Johnson could come after the Conservative Party conference in early October unless he changes course. He calls for tax rises to be reversed, VAT on energy bills to be slashed and a “10-year Conservative plan” for changing Britain.

Coming from a Johnson ally, albeit one who has criticised policy decisions since leaving the Cabinet in December, the message will highlight to Downing Street the political risk to the Prime Minister that remains. “Every Prime Minister has weaknesses and blind spots,” Lord Frost writes.

“The issue is whether they are able to compensate for them, by having the right people, by taking good advice, and by setting a clear policy direction with broad support. The PM probably has between now and the party conference to show he can do that.”

Mr Johnson tried to reassert his political authority over his party in a speech in Blackpool yesterday, after narrowly surviving the attempt to oust him.

He issued a new promise to cut tax, saying the soaring tax burden – forecast to hit a 70-year high – was an “aberration” that should be reversed.

“You can’t spend your way out of inflation, and you can’t tax your way into growth,” the Prime Minister said.

He also vowed to complete Margaret Thatcher’s right to buy revolution by expanding the policy to include housing associations and promised to deliver more 95 per cent mortgages.

But on taxation no detail was given as to when or how cuts would come, and the Prime Minister declined to back income tax reductions this year or new cuts to fuel duty.

There have also been questions raised as to whether the housing reforms will deliver real change, given no new money will go to the right to buy expansion and the number of recipients will be capped. The address drew a mixed reception from Tory MPS.

One Cabinet minister praised the criticism of current tax levels as “spot on”. A Tory rebel called the speech “all over the place and lacking a clear sense of direction”. Many others said they had not watched the address.

Lord Frost was one of Mr Johnson’s closest advisers on Brexit, working under him in the Foreign Office before acting as his chief Brexit negotiator.

He remains supportive of the Prime Minister personally but quit the Cabinet in December, having become disillusioned about the direction of policy – not least on Covid lockdowns.

On Monday, 41 per cent of Tory MPS voted to remove Mr Johnson as Tory leader.

It meant the Prime Minister won the vote but the size of the rebellion was larger than expected.

Lord Frost writes that Mr Johnson “can’t ignore the depth of opposition”.

He continues: “Boris Johnson has been granted the right to give the Government a fresh start. He deserves that opportunity when one looks at all he has done for the country since becoming Prime Minister.

“But he needs to get a move on. The Privileges Committee investigation [into misleading Parliament over partygate] is still out there; it could easily come to some difficult conclusions; and he will face real problems if MPS, the party, and our voters can’t by then see a new positive agenda that would justify sticking with him as Prime Minister.

“‘Getting on with the job’, as he said at this week’s Cabinet, will not be enough if the new job is the same as the old job.”

Have you ever enjoyed a reheated meal or “regifted” a Christmas present? If so, Boris Johnson has just the speech for you! The Government shares our era’s penchant for rebooting a tired franchise. So it was no surprise when – hot on the heels of the Autumn Budget, the Spring Statement and “Operation Red Meat” – came another definitive “reset” speech in Blackpool. Sadly the result was less Batman Begins and closer to the all-female Ghostbusters, or a wearied Charles Bronson starring in what felt like his hundredth Death Wish film.

Though not the all-out mea culpa some were hoping for – some recognition that perhaps out-browning Brown wasn’t the way for a Tory government to go – the PM began by taking issue with… himself. You know, that other Boris Johnson, the one who’d been in charge for the last few years. He railed against the tax burden, as if imparting some hitherto undetected wisdom.

“You can’t spend your way out of inflation and you can’t tax your way into growth,” he barked. If only someone had mentioned not raising taxes to the Johnson who raised them about ten political nanoseconds ago.

He was, however, in energetic, lectern-thumping form.

(Things would only get better, naturally.) But this seemed a speech designed to be all things to all men; a sweetener for the fiscal hawks here, a bung for renters and a dollop for Nimbys there. The PM wanted to scrap tariffs, while protecting farmers from “cut-price” imports. He called for more wind farms but said not a word about fracking – an odd omission given the sheer amount of shale gas beneath the conference podium in Lancashire.

After 25 minutes, we finally arrived at the one new policy announcement, guaranteed to go down like a cup of warm vomit with the squeezed middle-class. Extending Thatcherite Right to Buy to housing benefit claimants. You can almost imagine the No10 brainstorming session. “Home ownership is good.” “Yep, agreed.” “Great, let’s do something on that – but with other people’s money.”

The whole thing was reminiscent of those odd meals students make. A weird policy omelette containing bell peppers, pesto and… Spam. Why not add an anchovy or two? Or some government-backed subprime mortgages? Yeah, why not, chuck ’em in and see what happens.

The PM excels at promising nebulous things he thinks people want to hear. We knew that already. But what does he really want for Britain? An hour later, we were none the wiser.