Could Boris Johnson’s spectacular exit from the Tory leadership race last week have been mere collateral in a scheme to target insurgent Brexiteer Andrea Leadsom?
Westminster sources have suggested a common link between the fall of Boris and an abortive scheme today to keep Leadsom out of a top Government job after the leadership contest.
The link is Nick Boles, a business minister who was initially part of Boris’s leadership team, but defected when Michael Gove sensationally declared his candidacy.
According to an insider account of the night before Boris’s launch, Boles – who supported Remain in the Brexit camapign – had the crucial job of securing Leadsom’s support by offering her the role of Chancellor.
The Sun reported that Boris gave Boles a note for Leadsom which read “Andrea, delighted you’re in our top 3” – which would have cemented a Boris-Gove-Leadsom dream trio of Leave campaigners.
But Boles, it was reported, never handed over the note. Leadsom, snubbed, declared her candidacy the next morning, followed swiftly by Gove. Boles became his campaign manager.
The pincer move left Boris on the back foot – and with so little support that he had no choice but to drop out.
Last night, Boles’s name was linked with perfidy again when text messages emerged urging Tory MPs to vote tactically for Gove to keep Leadsom away from the final ballot.
I have apologised to @Gove2016 for the message I sent. He did not know about it let alone authorise it. And it does not reflect his views.
— Nick Boles (@NickBolesMP) July 6, 2016
Boles said that he was “seriously frightened” by the prospect of Prime Minister Leadsom and that the party membership should not get the chance to vote her in as leader.
After an outcry at the cynicism of the move, Boles was forced to apologise and frantically distance Gove from the furore.
The common thread in the two acts of carpet-bagging – the successful one against Boris and the botched once against Leadsom – is Boles’s presence.
Depending on the skills minister’s true priorities, it raises the possibility that Leadsom is the real target, and Boris’s prime ministerial ambitions were simply caught up in a crossfire.
