Cummings: ‘We talked about replacing Johnson as PM weeks after 2019 election’

FORMER Downing Street aide Dominic Cummings said he was looking to oust Boris Johnson as Prime Minister only weeks after helping him secure an 80-seat majority.

Mr Cummings, who left No 10 in the autumn after a power struggle, accused Mr Johnson of not having a plan and said he “doesn’t know how to be Prime Minister”.

In last night’s interview with the BBC, the Vote Leave mastermind said he assisted the Conservative Party poll victory in December 2019 in order to settle the Brexit debate rather than due to any firm belief in his leadership.

Mr Cummings also laid bare the extent of the fractious relationship between former Vote Leave officials and Mr Johnson’s now-wife, Carrie Johnson only weeks after the landslide win.

“Before even mid-January we were having meetings in Number 10 saying it’s clear that Carrie (Johnson) wants rid of all of us,” said the former de facto chief of staff.

“At that point we were already saying by the summer either we’ll all have gone from here or we’ll be in the process of trying to get rid of him and get someone else in as Prime Minister.”

Mr Cummings claimed that in 2019, ahead of the election, Mrs Johnson was happy to have Vote Leave officials working in Downing Street, but this later changed.

He said: “As soon as the election was won her view was, ‘why should it be Dominic and the Vote Leave team? Why shouldn’t it be me that’s pulling the strings?”’

In comments broadcast yesterday, Mr Cummings was less than complimentary about Mr Johnson’s vision for the country.

Mr Cummings added: “He doesn’t have a plan, he doesn’t know how to be Prime Minister and we only got him in there because we had to solve a certain problem not because he was the right person to be running the country.”

Formerly an aide to Michael Gove when he was education secretary, Mr Cummings said his relationship with Mr Johnson was starting to break down “by summer 2020”, with him and former director of communications Lee Cain departing by November.

A Number 10 spokesman said: “The Government is entirely focused on emerging cautiously from the pandemic and building back better.”

The spokesman added: “Political appointments are entirely made by the Prime Minister.”