A major Tory donor has said he cannot support Boris Johnson after accusing him of watching a non-conservative government, fulfilling a “pathetic” promise to cut taxes and refusing to heed calls for a change in his prime minister’s course.
With the prime minister facing a Brexit rift for days and a growing revolt among party supporters after last week’s humiliating no-confidence vote, hotelier Sir Rocco Forte said he would “not put up with” the direction Johnson is heading.
He told the Observer that Johnson had mishandled the Partygate scandal and was “badly damaged” by a no-confidence vote Monday in which 148 lawmakers opposed the prime minister. However, out of greater despair at the work of the Johnson administration, Forte said it was simply “not a conservative government.”
“He was chosen to achieve Brexit and win the election, which he did, and he is probably the only person who could do it the way it was done,” he said.
“But those of us who supported him expected him to build a competent team around him, as he did when he was mayor of London, and to manage effectively. That just didn’t happen. And the reality of this government is that it is not a conservative government.
Boris Johnson with billionaire John Codwell in 2014. The founder of Phones4U wants more investment from the government. Photo: David M Benett / Getty Images
“If you run a business, you don’t feel that this government is behind you in any way. That’s what the Conservative government needs to do. Unless he changes course and does something about it – which doesn’t seem likely because he assumes he’s already doing all the things that need to be done – I don’t think people on the right of the party, like me, will put up with this. .
“Unless I see a change, I don’t feel I can support it in the future. I supported the conservative government. Unless I see a conservative government, what’s the point of supporting it? “
Forte gave Johnson £ 100,000 for the last election campaign. What is worrying about Johnson is that other donors are also losing faith – but there are conflicting views on how the prime minister should fix things.
John Codwell, the billionaire founder of Phones4U, who gave the Tories £ 500,000 before the last election, did not say whether Johnson should leave, but called for more investment. “Instead of prudence, we need to borrow on an unprecedented scale and invest wisely, productively and profitably,” he said, citing renewable energy, infrastructure, subsidies to industry and apprenticeships.
That’s when former Conservative chairman Chris Patton said the party was a prisoner of the “Johnson cult” and cabinet ministers were reluctant to turn against it. The party was in the midst of a “very long nervous breakdown.”
Lord Patton added: “We have no conservative government at all, but an English nationalist party that is populist but – fatally – unpopular.
Concern among donors and grandmasters is another sign that, despite relative calm among lawmakers after Monday’s vote, Johnson remains unstable. A Brexit confrontation is already brewing. On Monday, the government will announce plans to effectively reject the Northern Ireland Protocol, the part of the Brexit deal with the EU that governs the region.
As the government tries to reassure lawmakers that the proposals will not rekindle Brexit tensions, the Observer has been told by a number of sources that the government bill still includes sections repealing the EU-agreed protocol, a move that critics say is illegal and will provoke a riot.
Chris Patton, a former Conservative chairman, says the party is a prisoner of the Johnson Cult. Photo: Murdo Macleod / The Observer
A conservative source said: “The government is lying to its own MPs and the media about the illegal focus of this bill. The Tories are repeating the vote of Owen Patterson and Partygate – again positioning the party entirely in support of breaking the law over the rule of law.
Understandably, key legal advice has not been presented to the cabinet committee monitoring the plans. The Observer found that Thomas D. Grant, an academic lawyer who worked in the US State Department during the Trump administration and wrote legal articles in support of a hard Brexit, advised on the bill. Whitehall sources said that while he offered advice, he was not a central part of the legal team.
There have been frantic legal and political talks between Johnson, his cabinet and lawmakers over the past week. Johnson was forced to take a hard line and effectively repeal the protocol.
This created a major flashpoint for Johnson. Some Brexit MEPs, including some from the European Research Group (ERG), who have been creating constant problems for Theresa May, could withdraw their support for him if plans are seen as too weak. However, the moderate Tories also threaten to revolt if they believe the law violates international law.
An ERG source scoffed at the idea that they had a “Machiavellian conspiracy to take control of the party” by holding Johnson for ransom. They said it was most important to ensure that the European Court of Justice did not monitor UK law.
There are already signs that with the withdrawal of the immediate impact of the Covid pandemic, Brexit clashes are resuming. Mark Jenkinson, a Tory MP from Workington, told the Daily Mail that “leftists, lords and lions” show that they still do not accept the result of the referendum. The newspaper also claims in an essay that “the counter-revolution of the others has begun” and that Johnson’s replacement could lead to a reversal of Brexit.
Add Comment