In a large hall in the heart of Downing Street, as they waited to pass their fateful sentence on Boris Johnson, a group of cabinet ministers were forced to mingle uncomfortably with the Prime Minister’s closest allies.
The delegation slowly grew throughout Wednesday night. Nadhim Zahawi, who had taken over as chancellor less than 24 hours earlier, Home Secretary Priti Patel, Trade Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan, Cabinet Secretary Keith Malthouse, Wales Secretary Simon Hart and Transport Secretary Grant Shapps were in attendance in various places. Even Simon Clarke, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and one of Johnson’s staunchest supporters from the earliest days of his leadership campaign, joined in by phone. “Everyone in that room agreed that the game was over,” said one attendee. “Every single person was there to say that.”
Those still vying for prime minister did so with varying degrees of conviction. James Duddridge, Johnson’s aide, made friendly conversation. Cabinet minister Nigel Adams and communications director Guto Harry were in and out. The most zealous attempts to save Johnson’s premiership were made by Ben Elliott, the Tory chairman, and Andrew Griffith, head of No 10 Political Unit, whose palatial Westminster townhouse was used as Johnson’s leadership campaign headquarters just three years later. -early.
The ministers were made to wait. Even at this late hour, Johnson’s inner circle was making last-minute attempts to persuade them to stay in power. As nerves gave way to hunger – the only food was a slow trickle of tea and biscuits – some ministers were ushered into separate rooms by Johnson’s remaining loyalists as they tried to convince them that the ship could be righted.
Zahawi tried his best to convince Johnson’s team that it was all over. “The herd is trampling,” he told them. “Once the herd is jostling, you just have to get out of the way.” Griffith, whose dismissive approach angered several ministers during the tense evening, hit back. “What you need to understand,” he replied, “is that the herd will tire after a while and go back to eating grass.”
There were delays before the group could see the premier. First, Johnson had to finish his bruising appearance before the Liaison Committee, made up of select committee chairs, which took a surreal turn when he was told about the growing number of ministers waiting for him in Number 10. concluded, David Canzini, deputy chief of staff, told insiders that the look was “about as bad as it gets.”
After that, Johnson had regular information – by telephone – with the Queen. Then the really difficult conversations began. First was a meeting with Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Tory Committee. He informed the Prime Minister – sitting passively next to his chief whip, Chris Heaton-Harris – that party rules were likely to change to allow a second vote of no confidence in the Prime Minister, which he will surely lose. Johnson was polite in rejecting the request outright.
Somber faces in the office on Tuesday morning Photo: Getty Images
Only then, and only one by one, were the assembled cabinet ministers allowed to visit the prime minister to deliver their verdicts. By all accounts, the Prime Minister remained good-natured, but there were no signs that he was ready to accept any of the arguments presented. To some he protested that it was unfair to be asked to give up the job he had craved for so long. He claimed to others that he was mandated not by Tory MPs but by the 14 million voters who supported him. He said he “owes it to them” to keep fighting. Some said he seemed oddly upbeat and had “a lot more juice in the tank.” This made it even more difficult, but some found it unnerving.
“It’s weird that it’s gone slightly Trumpist,” said one. “It’s all – “I’m not going, I don’t see any ships, it’s all right. One more push and we’ll be fine. None of this is my fault. I was the victim of a stitch-up – if only the party understood how good I was.” That’s weird.”
Indeed, late on Wednesday, figures in Westminster and Whitehall began to worry about how far Johnson would go in refusing to relinquish power. The levels of denial in the bunker had become too much for one cabinet minister. “They’re all crazy,” he despaired to a friend. “Everybody’s crazy.”
By the time Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis flew in and drove to Downing Street to deliver his verdict on Johnson, resignations from party and government posts were approaching a rapid half-century. There were now real doubts that the posts could be filled.
Even parliamentary sources worried that events had taken a turn for Trump. They feared American-style demonstrations if Johnson refused to go. “Mafia rule is our big fear now,” said one Commons source, warning that a continued refusal to step down could lead to divisive protests in parliament. They were desperate to avoid “Capitol Hill.”
Ironically for a prime minister who defied the conventions and norms of the Whitehall establishment, it was the quiet but devastating intervention of an official that caused the dominoes to fall on Tuesday.
Former Health Secretary Sajid Javid makes his devastating personal statement to the House of Representatives on Wednesday Photo: Jessica Taylor/AP
Sir Simon Macdonald, the former senior civil servant at the Foreign Office, said that despite repeated allegations, Johnson was aware of previous allegations relating to Chris Pincher, the deputy chief officer suspended for allegedly groping two men.
Strange as it may seem now, there were times when Downing Street aides thought they could stop the landslide caused by this intervention.
Serious concern was raised when staff saw images of Tuesday morning’s cabinet meeting. In a more comical twist, TV cameras were allowed to film it, with ministers looking visibly sullen and uncomfortable.
It was followed by a disastrous briefing with political journalists in which Downing Street struggled to answer questions about what exactly the prime minister knew about the allegations against Pincher. It was decided that Johnson would go on camera as soon as possible, apologize for handling the affair and “eat some crap” to avoid the resignations.
When members of Johnson’s team began watching a tape of his apology to the camera, they thought they might have acted quickly enough to stop any further damage. Then the news dropped – Sajid Javid, the health secretary, resigned, warning that the British people “rightly expect integrity from their government”. Minutes later, Chancellor Rishi Sunak followed up with a similar warning that the public “expect government to be run properly, competently and seriously”.
It looked like a coordinated cabinet move, but as they waited for more cabinet names to follow, none came. A strange confidence grew among the Prime Minister’s inner circle that they could overcome him.
A decision was made to replace the two who left the office. An insider said: “There was a ‘fuck it’ feel to it. Not many followed them. We probably have better political appointments for what we need right now. We live to fight another day. Jacob Rees-Mogg took to the airwaves to compare the threat to Johnson to that faced by Harold Macmillan in 1958 when his entire Treasury team resigned – a development Macmillan described as “a little local difficulty “.
Indeed, even as several cabinet ministers began to clarify that they were not resigning, MPs began to leave posts such as MPs, assistant ministers and deputy party chairmen.
One of the most telling early departures was that of overly loyal Red Wall MP Jonathan Gullis. The resignations began to gather pace throughout Wednesday morning. Promotions secretary Michael Gove also made the first big move, telling Johnson to leave with dignity – an intervention that saw him end the crisis as the only person fired by Johnson. His removal sparked immediate anger in the government, including in Number 10.
One junior minister, Joe Churchill, released his letter during a humiliating Prime Minister’s Questions in which Labor leader Keir Starmer described the government’s implosion as “the first recorded case of a sinking ship running away from the rat”.
Boris Johnson delivers his defiant resignation speech on Thursday Picture: Henry Nicholls/Reuters
The stage was stolen by Tory MP Gary Sambrook, who drew cheers from opposition parties when he concluded that Johnson “always tries to blame other people for mistakes and has no choice but to take responsibility and resign”.
This was hardly the beginning of the humiliation Johnson was to endure. Next up was Javid’s resignation speech, in which Johnson tried and failed to stop shaking his head in frustration. By the time Javid finished, Johnson’s left heel was repeatedly hitting the floor of the gym.
Matters took their strangest turn during a committee hearing on Johnson a few hours later. Hugh Merriman, one of the MPs due to question Johnson, tweeted his letter calling for the prime minister’s resignation as he sat just meters away.
The mystery to many cabinet members who saw a still defiant Johnson that Wednesday night is exactly what prompted him to change his mind and withdraw from Trump’s moment. Figures close to him offer some time for reflection in his private suite, coupled with the ‘cold light of day’, which meant that early on Thursday morning he was faced with reality.
He started working on a quit letter first and Nigel Adams was ordered to get Graham Brady back on the phone. When the two spoke again at 8:30 a.m., Johnson—calm again—said he would agree to go….
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