Fall Out: A Year of Political Mayhem. Tim Shipman
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There was resentment at Johnson’s statements during the referendum campaign, which many saw as misleading. When the foreign secretary travelled to Turkey later that month and told President Erdogan that he supported Turkish EU entry, just months after the Leave campaign had played on fears of Turkey to drum up votes, Manfred Weber – the president of the conservative European People’s Party (EPP) grouping in the European Parliament – accused him of an ‘unbelievable provocation’. Johnson’s suggestion in January 2017 that EU leaders should not be tempted to give the UK ‘punishment beatings’ for Brexit ‘in the manner of some World War Two movie’ would only confirm to many continentals that he was more intent on being interesting than being diplomatic.
European officials mounted their own briefing operation against Johnson. On the evening of 30 November, the Guardian and Sky News began to report that the foreign secretary had privately told a group of EU ambassadors that he was personally in favour of the free movement of people. Four of them had spoken to Sky. One said, ‘He did say he was personally in favour of free movement, but he said it wasn’t government policy.’ Johnson had always been liberal on immigration, but the claim was toxic since it flew in the face of his stance at Vote Leave and Theresa May’s decision to put control of immigration at the top of her list of priorities.
When Steve Baker heard the news, he detected ‘a political operation designed to discomfort Eurosceptics’. The ambassadors had been introduced to the journalists by British Influence, a group run by Peter Wilding, an arch-Europhile who had first coined the term ‘Brexit’. Baker texted Johnson to ask what the ‘line to take was’. The foreign secretary replied that he was ‘in favour of migration under control’. Determined to close down the story, Baker messaged all 170 MPs and peers on an old mailing list he had used to stage EU rebellions against David Cameron and said, ‘This is an attack on Boris Johnson. Boris Johnson’s view hasn’t changed, he’s in favour of migration under democratic control. Nothing has changed.’ He sent the same message to the European Research Group WhatsApp group and then tweeted his support for Johnson, urging others to do the same. ‘The result was that within fifteen minutes we’d destroyed that operation against Boris,’ a leading Eurosceptic said. ‘What they were hoping for was Eurosceptics turning on Boris Johnson and tearing him limb from limb.’ Baker had turned his Eurosceptic shock troops from a guerrilla unit fighting his own government into a praetorian guard for hard Brexit.
Even so, Johnson’s cabinet colleagues continued to undermine him. In his autumn statement speech to the Commons, Philip Hammond could not resist a dig at Boris’s failed leadership bid and his reference a year earlier that he would seek the leadership ‘if the ball came loose at the back of the scrum’. Incisors gleaming, the chancellor told MPs, ‘I suspect that I will prove no more adept at pulling rabbits from hats than my successor as foreign secretary has been in retrieving balls from the back of scrums.’ Johnson smiled ruefully. A special adviser said, ‘Number 10 advised Hammond not to put that joke in his speech and he didn’t listen to them.’
Some of Johnson’s problems were the result of the uncontrollable circus that has always surrounded him. In late November, he was in Serbia and was invited to speak about press freedom at the oldest bookshop in Belgrade. But when the owner produced copies of his biography of Winston Churchill to sign, Johnson found himself in hot water, accused of profiting from a diplomatic trip.
Others appeared to be the result of hostile briefing from his cabinet colleagues. Priti Patel was fingered for briefing the Sun about the Foreign Office wasting aid money. ‘She felt very uncomfortable that he was making headlines on Brexit and she was stuck in DfID,’ a ministerial aide adduced. Other colleagues ridiculed his contributions to discussion. One stated, ‘Boris has not said anything of consequence in cabinet. It is very high level tendentious piffle.’ Cabinet ministers recounted how May’s patience with Johnson wore thin, on one occasion holding up her hand with her eyes closed and sighing as if she was trying to mute him. ‘There was a flash of anger,’ a cabinet minister said. ‘That was unusual for her.’ One minister even made the extraordinary claim that Johnson ‘got the number of Punic wars wrong’ during one of his classical disquisitions in cabinet. Johnson saw the hand of May’s acolytes too. He told friends, ‘I think there were at least a couple of shots from our friends in Number 10.’
The most damaging story was traced to the Treasury. On 20 November, at the height of the rows over the customs union, the Mail on Sunday claimed Johnson had turned up at the Brexit committee with the wrong papers.1 In the meeting, he had annoyed Hammond by making a point unconnected with the chancellor’s presentation. Another cabinet minister said, ‘It wasn’t that he turned up with the wrong papers. He started talking about something that we had discussed at the last meeting. He had just forgotten that whole discussion.’ The chancellor told friends Johnson was unprepared and the anecdote was passed to the press.
Cabinet colleagues continued to be frustrated by Johnson’s controversialism – and his seeming ability to get away with things they could not. On a cabinet away day in early 2017, Johnson was walking with Andrea Leadsom and Ben Gummer while press photographers stalked them. Gummer referred to the controversy over the size of the crowds at Donald Trump’s inauguration. Johnson, who had misheard said, ‘The Krauts? What do you mean the Krauts?’
‘No, no, no. Crowds, Boris.’
‘What about the Krauts?’
‘I said the crowds, the people there.’
Johnson bellowed, ‘I thought you said Krauts! It wasn’t Krauts at all! I thought you were talking about Krauts.’
Gummer said, ‘For God’s sake don’t say that in front of the cameras because they’ll be able to lip read what you’re saying.’
One minister who heard the story said, ‘It shows the layers of his mind, what comes first, what you hear.’
The moment that led to a full-blown crisis at the top of the government came in early December, shortly after the prime minister had made a trade trip to the Gulf. In the Bahraini capital, Manama, May had become the first woman ever to address the Gulf Cooperation Council, the regional political organisation for the energy-rich Gulf monarchies: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. In a speech and over dinner with the ageing potentates, May sealed a strategic security partnership and agreement to unblock barriers to free trade, saying that in challenging times Britain wanted to be ‘partner of choice’ with its ‘oldest and most dependable friends’. The warmth of the welcome impressed May and Fiona Hill, who was travelling with her. ‘They just fell in love with her,’ Hill told colleagues.
May and Hill were both livid when it emerged that, at a conference in Rome the following week, Johnson had criticised her new Saudi friends. ‘There are politicians who are twisting and abusing religion and different strains of the same religion in order to further their own political objectives,’ Johnson claimed. Referring to the conflicts in Syria and Yemen, he added, ‘You’ve got the Saudis, Iran, everybody, moving in and puppeteering and playing proxy wars.’ The comments were a flagrant breach of the diplomatic omertà on criticising allies in public.
In Downing Street, Helen Bower – May’s official spokeswoman – needed a line to give to the morning briefing with lobby journalists. Hill issued her with an incendiary quote: ‘Those are the foreign secretary’s views, they are not the government’s position on Saudi Arabia and its role in the region.’ Instead of calming the situation, the quote was guaranteed to be seen as another slap-down for Johnson from Team May. Suggesting the foreign secretary did not speak for the government was hugely damaging. According to several sources, Bower queried the line and Hill ordered her to use it. Hill says only that she cleared it.
The resulting row was the worst to date. Katie Perrior was returning from a meeting outside Downing Street when the news dropped. The Downing Street slap-down to their best-known minister was leading every news bulletin. She received a call from Johnson, who was ‘very cross’ and hurt. ‘I cannot believe you’ve issued that line,’ he said. ‘Why would you do that to