{"id":1004567,"date":"2026-06-04T09:35:32","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T09:35:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1004567\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T09:35:32","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T09:35:32","slug":"boris-johnsons-path-to-power-and-brexit-told-by-those-who-loved-and-loathed-him","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1004567\/","title":{"rendered":"Boris Johnson\u2019s path to power and Brexit \u2013 told by those who loved and loathed him"},"content":{"rendered":"

Boris Johnson will go down as one of the most consequential prime ministers<\/a> of the last 100 years. Such a statement may seem, even to his most fervent devotees, hubristic. However, unpicking the story of how he came to occupy the leadership of a party who \u2013 in parliament at least \u2013 didn\u2019t trust him, and then to win the biggest electoral landslide since Margaret Thatcher<\/a> a generation earlier, tells a story of a hugely consequential figure.<\/p>\n

That accolade is deserved, for without Boris Johnson<\/a>\u2019s de facto public, although not organisational, leadership, the Leave campaign might not have won. And without his premiership Brexit may have withered<\/a> and been reversed.<\/p>\n

Boris and \u2018stunningly stupid\u2019 Theresa May<\/strong><\/p>\n

Theresa May was the blank canvas onto which MPs could project whatever they wanted her to be. Her cryptic answers and positional concealment were taken as hiding a clearly held worldview and a philosophical outlook that would, in time, be revealed. It would not really be until the 2017 election that MPs started to panic. May wasn\u2019t concealing what she believed in \u2013 she didn\u2019t really believe in anything. She suffered not from communication issues, but from the absence of anything noteworthy to communicate. <\/p>\n

\"GavinGavin Williamson was known to some as a \u2018pound shop Machiavelli\u2019 (PA)<\/p>\n

May was the perfect vehicle to stop Boris (when she succeeded David Cameron as PM after the 2016 EU referendum) and a perfect tool found her \u2013 Gavin Williamson. Some called him a \u201cpound shop Machiavelli\u201d. That is unfair. He had an organisational ability which matched his lack of interpersonal charm. For him, a candidate without belief was campaign gold, and he exploited it effectively.<\/p>\n

Her (May\u2019s) decision to make Boris foreign secretary took everyone by surprise. It was seen as a plum job \u2013 one of the great offices of state. That narrative was sucked up and spewed out ad nauseam, by the Westminster bubble commentariat in full herd mentality. <\/p>\n

However, it was a brilliant shafting of a rival. How could Boris complain? He was now representing the UK on the global stage. Her (May\u2019s) stunningly stupid repetition of \u201cBrexit means Brexit\u201d hid the reality that she had no idea what she wanted.<\/p>\n

May\u2019s decision to call an election (in 2017) was a disaster. Not many people said that at the time. Presciently, Boris did. I remember him saying, \u201cWhat the f**k happens when the public sees her?\u201d (Her reputation as) \u201cstrong and stable\u201d had long since given way to reality behind the cabinet curtain. As in Alice in Wonderland, they discovered there was nothing there. <\/p>\n

Soon the public would see that too.<\/p>\n

After the election\u2026 no amount of personal sympathy could conceal what everyone knew and felt \u2013 May had blown it. She was the political \u201cPeter Principle\u201d \u2013 promoted to her level of incompetence. (From Laurence Peter\u2019s 1969 book, which says in any hierarchy, people rise to their respective level of incompetence.)<\/p>\n

He (Johnson) described May as being \u201clike some giant Ukka tree in the Brazilian rainforest under whose shade everything dies\u201d. <\/p>\n

Brexiteer \u2018knuckleheads\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

Supreme bores like Bernard Jenkin<\/a> (Conservative MP for Essex North) deeply resented Johnson, whom they regarded as a Johnny-come-lately. <\/p>\n

At the start, it was not obvious that May had no plan. The knuckleheaded Brexiteers, led by the Jenkin brigade and more excitable elements of the ERG (pro-Brexit group of Conservative MPs<\/a>), clamoured for Article 50 (formal process for leaving the EU) to be invoked.<\/p>\n

Boris received delegations daily asking him to challenge May over Brexit. Steve Baker<\/a> was ever-present, often close to tears, although this was before he had acquired his own personal photographer to record his role for history.<\/p>\n

Many colleagues gave the impression of losing their marbles. I recall Steve Baker calling me late at night, close to tears, telling me he did not want to take Boris\u2019s job as prime minister, but if the national interest demanded that he save Brexit he would be prepared to do it! That news met with a \u201cFFS!\u201d text reply from Boris the following morning.<\/p>\n

\u2018Off the spectrum\u2019 Liz Truss<\/strong><\/p>\n

When Liz Truss<\/a> arrives and walks into a meeting uninvited, displaying an off-the-spectrum lack of awareness to offer support, you can safely start measuring curtains in No 10. <\/p>\n

\"TrussTruss was \u2018constantly on manoeuvres\u2019 \u2013 supported at the time by her future chief whip, Wendy Morton (Getty)<\/p>\n

Truss, whom Boris had come very close to sacking in 2019, was constantly on manoeuvres. She was supported by the person who would become her chief whip (Wendy Morton) \u2013 known among colleagues near universally as \u201cWendy Moron\u201d \u2013 and a young MP from north Hampshire who looked like he was auditioning for a part as Alan B\u2019Stard.<\/p>\n

Dominic Cummings made up for Johnson\u2019s lack of \u2018gumption\u2019 <\/strong><\/p>\n

This relationship became cancerous. They used each other. Boris hates conflict and goes out of his way to avoid it. There is no way he would have had the gumption to prorogue Parliament or withdraw the whip from so many MPs without Cummings at his side.<\/p>\n

Conversely, probably no other prime minister would have allowed Cummings near Downing Street. They were useful to each other, and, without each other, neither, arguably, would have been possible.<\/p>\n

\u2018Arrogant and conceited\u2019 David Cameron and George Osborne<\/strong><\/p>\n

The disgraceful decision of Cameron and Osborne to prevent the civil service preparing for a Leave vote wasn\u2019t born solely out of arrogance or conceit \u2013 although both were abundant \u2013 but of the reality that life was very different outside their bubble.<\/p>\n

The \u2018hatred\u2019 between Johnson\u2019s and Michael Gove\u2019s teams<\/strong><\/p>\n

(There was) mutual suspicion between the \u201cAmigos\u201d (Johnson\u2019s team) and the \u201cGovers\u201d \u2013 think of Henrys, Hugos and Henriettes with the occasional Harriet. It would not be an understatement to say they hated each other. That animosity was only matched by the zeal of the Parliamentary party, who were determined that the next leader would be ABB \u2013 Anyone But Boris.<\/p>\n

Johnson\u2019s foreign secretary deputy\u2019s \u2018loathing\u2019 of him<\/strong><\/p>\n

Senior Foreign Office mandarins gave the open impression that they thought Boris an affront to their civilised values. Other than by the very well-oiled, large and superficially jovial head of political affairs, he was made very unwelcome. Even his ministerial team were there as an irritant. Alan Duncan (deputy foreign secretary)\u2026 could not conceal his loathing. Alistair Burt (junior Foreign Office minister) was indulgently patronising. Rory Stewart (junior Foreign Office minister) was just himself.<\/p>\n

Multiple drinks events were organised with the help of Charlotte Owen (aide to Johnson, later given a peerage by him) and my highly strung PA \u2013 nicknamed \u201cFunctus\u201d by Boris \u2013 when I could prise time into the diary from the utterly terrifying and contemptuous Foreign Office diary secretary.<\/p>\n

Johnson\u2019s \u2018flawed\u2019 appointments<\/strong><\/p>\n

The flaws in so many of the people he (Johnson) appointed were stark. Simon Case as cabinet secretary, was lightweight. That\u2019s why he was chosen. Picking frocks for the Duchess of Cambridge was in a different league from heading the Civil Service. <\/p>\n

\n

One of my favourites was Johnny Mercer, the good\u2011looking, vain, on-off veterans minister. He told Boris he would back him and they should \u2018do this together\u2019<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I was surprised to learn the new chief whip was Mark Spencer \u2013 who had not overburdened us with support in the preceding year, to put it mildly. I texted him and arranged to meet him the following morning. He arrived without pen, pad or any capacity to take notes. He was indifferent to the intelligence I had to impart. A farmer by profession, it was harsh to say \u2013 as a senior No 10 figure did \u2013 that one of his cows would have done better. But his nickname, \u2018the bovine Chief\u2019, had more than an element of truth to it.<\/p>\n

Whilst he was not the worst chief whip in history \u2013 that title must go to Truss\u2019s \u201cWallace and Gromit\u201d Chief (Wendy Morton) \u2013 he was not an asset in such a sensitive post at such a challenging time.<\/p>\n

\"ChiefChief whip Mark Spencer arrives to attend a cabinet meeting at 10 Downing Street in 2022 (AFP\/Getty)<\/p>\n

Burns\u2019s rude verdict on Matt Hancock and other senior Tories<\/strong><\/p>\n

Matt Hancock (who resigned as Johnson\u2019s health secretary over a sex scandal) predictably lived up to the last four letters of his name. <\/p>\n

Heckling (during Johnson\u2019s resignation speech as Foreign Secretary) was led by an elderly, florid MP called [Roger] Gale, whom many were surprised to discover was still in the House.<\/p>\n

Toby Ellwood (ex defence minister), universally known as \u201cWooden Top\u201d in the tearoom, and others were calling for ongoing membership of the single market\u2026 something they clearly didn\u2019t understand.<\/p>\n

When Grant Shapps (ex Tory chair) joins a campaign late and offers to do the numbers, it isn\u2019t because he thinks you need his help. It is because he has concluded you will win and that he can use you. That is true \u2013 on steroids \u2013 for Gavin Williamson (education secretary in Johnson\u2019s government).<\/p>\n

I saw some of the most unedifying sides of colleagues, like the backbencher who cried over his promised privy councillorship and then asked to be home secretary\u2026 or the minister who said he would never serve under Boris, yet asked to be COP (Global Climate Change conference) president. <\/p>\n

One of my favourites was Johnny Mercer<\/a>, the good\u2011looking, vain, on-off veterans minister. He told Boris he would back him and they should \u201cdo this together\u201d. Boris gave a characteristic \u2018Come on!\u2019 reply. This was interpreted by Mercer that he would be number two on a leadership ticket with Boris!<\/p>\n

\"\"(Cambridge University Press)<\/p>\n

Rishi Sunak\u2019s \u2018submarine campaign\u2019 against Johnson.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Colleagues (Tory MPs) used it (Covid) to undermine Boris, with many leading Covid strategy-sceptic colleagues being guerrilla members of the Sunak shadow leadership campaign. The perilous position of Boris Johnson\u2019s premiership was clear to his supporters.<\/p>\n

Sunak\u2019s parliamentary private secretary and Tory MP Claire Coutinho loitered outside the chancellor\u2019s Commons office to lure in troublesome or wavering colleagues given face-time with the prime minister. Team Boris was accidentally offering up colleagues to the submarine Sunak campaign on a plate. <\/p>\n

Why Johnson had to resign as PM<\/strong><\/p>\n

The reality was that Boris had served his purpose. He had broken the Brexit impasse. Brexit had \u2018got done\u2019. As he used them (the Tory Party), they used him.<\/p>\n

Adapted from \u2018The Brexit Effect: 2016-2026<\/a>\u2019 edited by Anthony Seldon and published by Cambridge University Press on 18 June (\u00a316.99)<\/p>\n

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