Boris’s Operation Fightback begins

• PM to take charge of migrant crisis and form a No10 NHS ‘war room’ • He’ll mastermind Cabinet reshuff le and a clear-out of Downing St staff • Allies hope that a shake-up will keep him safe until summer

‘When Boris tried to win support, I couldn’t look him in the eye ’

BORIS JOHNSON will relaunch his Premiership if he survives the Partygate row by taking personal charge of the migrant boats crisis and establishing a No10 ‘war room’ to lead the post-Covid rebuilding of the NHS.

Despite growing unrest in the Cabinet and the Tory backbenches over the damage inflicted on the Government by revelations about lockdown breaches in Downing Street, the Prime Minister’s allies still hope the official report into the saga will stop short of implicating Mr Johnson directly and allow him breathing space to cling on to power.

With the two leadership favourites – Chancellor Rishi Sunak and Foreign Secretary Liz Truss – hesitant about the timing of any bid for power, Mr Johnson has a window of a few months in which to try to rebuild his battered administration before the critical local elections in May. But that depends on Tory dissenters being unable to provide the 54 letters to Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of the backbench 1922 Committee, that would trigger a vote of no-confidence in the Prime Minister.

Under the relaunch plan, Mr Johnson would respond to senior civil servant Sue Gray’s report into Partygate – which is expected within the next fortnight – by accepting the resignations of No 10 officials deemed culpable for the mistakes and instituting sweeping personnel changes to the Downing Street operation.

A limited Cabinet reshuffle, removing Chief Whip Mark Spencer and Commons Leader Jacob Rees-Mogg, is also being mooted.

The expected lifting of all Covid restrictions by the end of the month would clear the way for new policy announcements. Polling data presented to the Prime Minister shows that the two main priorities for voters in key swing seats are protecting the NHS and tackling the Channel migrants crisis.

Under the draft plans, Mr Johnson would take full personal ‘ownership’ of the migrants issue from Home Secretary Priti Patel, ‘banging heads together’, in the words of a source, across Whitehall.

To tackle the NHS backlog – the pandemic is expected to push the waiting list to more than 13million procedures and operations – a ‘war room’ would be set up in Downing Street to lend military-style discipline to the plan.

Michael Gove’s much-delayed White Paper outlining the Government’s flagship plans for ‘levelling up’ the country is also due to be published by the end of the month, despite rows with the Treasury over redistributing resources to deprived areas of the Midlands and the North.

Gove’s paper is viewed as Mr Johnson’s delayed discharge of promises he made at the 2019 General Election to retain the Red Wall seats that switched from Labour to Tory for the first time.

Discontent among Red Wall MPs is one of the most significant threats to Mr Johnson. With polling showing a double-digit lead for Labour in the constituencies that the Conservatives gained in 2019, many think that changing their leader is their only chance of hanging on to their seats.

Last night, one of the MPs told The Mail on Sunday he would be sending a letter to Sir Graham by the end of this week because he was ‘revolted’ by Partygate and Mr Johnson’s ‘fake apology’. The MP said: ‘When he toured the Commons tearoom last week trying to generate support, I stayed away from him because I couldn’t look him in the eye.’

Mr Johnson’s hopes of hanging on have been boosted by the fact that there is no unanimity in the party about a successor. Mr Sunak scores well in polls of party members, who have the ultimate decision on the leadership, and with ordinary voters. But some MPs fear their constituents would struggle to ‘click’ with the wealthy Chancellor.

Last night, a source said: ‘The hope is that the tone of Sue Gray’s report will be one of “team-bonding gone awry”. That should be enough for the PM to see it through to the summer at least.’