Dominic Cummings “coordinated” a premiership toppling briefing campaign against Boris Johnson after “threatening” the ex-Prime Minister over partygate, a new book has claimed.
The spurned former special adviser, who fell out with Johnson after losing a No10 power struggle against his now wife Carrie, allegedly spearheaded an elaborate plan to force the ex-Prime Minister into “lying” over lockdown parties.
In a fiery exchange recorded in Tim Shipman’s new book Out, Cummings told Johnson: “You’d better get a grip on that, or things are going to blow up out of your control.
“When we leave, your girlfriend is going to say a bunch of shit and I’m going to hold you personally responsible for what she says. You know what that means for you, don’t you?”
Cummings ‘coordinated’ Boris’ downfall after ‘threatening’ ex-PM over partygate ‘p**s-ups’
PA
Johnson simply asked: “Are you threatening me?”
Cummings, who left No10 the next day, replied: “Yes, I’m f***ing threatening you.”
Following a series of revelations, including leaked footage of ex-press secretary Allegra Stratton laughing nervously at partygate questions, Cummings said: “This could work out better. We could trap the f****r into lying about it? He’ll just tell everyone to just deny it all.”
Johnson and his team attempted to swat away the story by claiming there was “no Christmas party” and “Covid rules have been followed at all times”.
Speaking at Prime Minister’s Questions, Johnson told MPs: “All guidance was followed completely.”
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Responding to the development, Cummings said: “When the truth drips out, it’s going to break him.”
Cummings later admitted to Vote Leave allies setting up a “grid” of potential stories designed to wound Johnson.
“They ran avery effective briefing campaign,” said an aide loyal to Johnson until the end.
“It was deliberate, it was totally co-ordinated, but it was also undemocratic and outside the rules of normal politics, because this guy was elected, he was leader of the Conservative Party, he was Prime Minister.”
Following a crisis conversation between Johnson and chief of staff Daniel Rosenfield, a minister recalled: “He should have said to the PM, ‘They were pissing it up on a Friday night.
“I’ve got to the bottom of it. We’re going to have to put our hands up here and we need to get out on the front foot and apologise’.”
Johnson was able to weather the storm for just a few weeks, with tumbling support in the opinion polls and a series of by-election defeats leaving the ex-Prime Minister’s premiership in tatters.
However, after a Cabinet cabal following the Chris Pincher scandal, Johnson announced his intention to resign in July 2022.
Johnson was later forced to quit as an MP ahead of a damning report by the privileges committee into partygate.
In a 1,000-word resignation statement, Johnson said: “I am bewildered and appalled that I can be forced out, anti-democratically, by a committee chaired and managed, by Harriet Harman, with such egregious bias.”
The privileges committee’s 108-page report concluded that Johnson “misled the House, “breached the confidence” of the committee, “impugned the committee and thereby undermin[ed] the democratic process of the House” and was “complicit in the campaign of abuse and intimidation of the Committee”.
Ahead of the release of his tell-all memoir Spare, Johnson admitted that he made a “catastrophic” mistake by apologising for partygate.
Johnson said: “Without belabouring this weary business, I think I made several catastrophic mistakes in the handling of the story.
“I should have been far more robust at the outset. I tried to defuse public anger by a series of rather pathetic apologies, even when I knew zero about the events for which I was apologising.”
The former Prime Minister described the decision to oust him as an “unfair witch-hunt”, adding: “My grovelling just made people even angrier – and made it look as though we were far more culpable than we were.”
He also claimed: “I should simply have asked anyone with evidence of wrongdoing to go to the police.”
Despite both Johnson and Cummings quitting frontline politics, speculation surrounds both of potentially returning to the fold in years to come.
