Team Boris was never going to go quietly. A bunker mentality had already befallen them. The resignations of Javid and Sunak were damaging but not altogether surprising. Cabinet ministers with an eye on the leadership position were likely going to jump ship before the end. In Sunak’s case, there was clearly tensions between No. 10 and No. 11 with Boris, immediately after Sunak’s resignation, proclaiming that now the Government could cut taxes (which was a rather an odd thing to say on the day where the threshold for paying National Insurance was lifted for millions).
At the point at which Javid and Sunak resigned it felt like formalities would bring Boris’ premiership to a close. Junior ministers started to follow suit in their droves which meant a brain drain in Government would make it untenable. The sitting 1922 committee today decided to hold off changing the rules for a leadership election with its Chairman Graham Brady offering ‘wise counsel’ instead (the new executive will move to change the rules on Monday the 11th). Then a group of Senior Tories met with Boris to tell him to resign. With each development the options open to Boris were narrowing.
And then he sacked Gove. Michael Gove has always been one of Boris Johnson’s stooges, going back to their days at Oxford when Gove helped Boris get elected as the president of the Oxford Union. It is true that Gove backed Leave before Boris had made up his mind, but when Boris became a leading Brexiteer Gove was content to retreat behind Boris, his leader.
Although not universally liked by the wider public, Gove is a highly effective, competent politician and well liked by Conservative Party members. The man often parachuted in to resolve issues and entrusted to deliver Boris' flagship levelling up agenda. If Boris’ premiership was already terminal, in sacking Gove before he could resign, a true and trusted ally of many years, Team Boris is no longer simply holding on to power, they are acting recklessly.
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