Was Boris Johnson behind revelations over Rishi Sunak’s wife? Some in Westminster suspect so

The Independent’s revelation of the non-domicile tax status of Rishi Sunak’s wife has added to the tensions and atmosphere of mutual suspicion between the chancellor and Boris Johnson.

The chancellor views the disclosure as a Labour smear campaign, while some of his allies suspect the hand of Downing Street. Blaming the opposition is an old trick; the latter charge is so incendiary, however, that No 10 and the Treasury must deny it. But only a handful of officials knew about Akshata Murty’s tax status. The fact that the Downing Street theory is taken seriously in Westminster tells us a lot about the Johnson-Sunak relationship.

Normally, a PM and a chancellor sink or swim together. But this is not normal politics, because of Johnson’s weakness; he is still fighting to save his premiership. “Ukraine has postponed the reckoning on Partygate, but it will happen,” one senior Tory MP told me. So anything that weakens a likely successor helps him, boosting the chances that Tory MPs will stick with him for the next general election in the absence of a PM in waiting.

The drip, drip of damaging disclosures about Sunak in recent months has coincided with a worsening of relations between him and Johnson. The tensions are about policy as well as personality, and began last summer over whether to increase taxes to raise money for health and social care. The standoff showed Sunak’s determination to be his own man – not what Johnson expected when he appointed him two years ago.

Johnson wanted to borrow more to fund the higher spending, but Sunak insisted on a national insurance rise. There has since been a tussle between the PM and the chancellor, each trying to ensure that the other “owns” the increase.

Partygate took the tensions to new heights. Johnson, desperate to give Tory backbenchers whatever they wanted so that they would not depose him, hinted to some that this month’s tax increase could be postponed. Sunak refused, and another superficial truce was agreed.

Behind the scenes, Team Johnson was furious with a chancellor who wears his ambition to succeed the PM on his Instagram account. Sunak distanced himself from Johnson. Even some of the chancellor’s supporters thought he had got the balance wrong. “It was too disloyal,” one said. Others pointed to Sunak’s impossible dilemma: defending the indefensible would make him complicit, while not doing so looked like he was fuelling a leadership crisis.

There were even rumours – denied by the Treasury – that Sunak had considered resigning, which would have provoked the requisite number of Tory MPs into triggering a vote of confidence in Johnson. After the latest revelations, Sunak might one day look back ruefully on missing his moment.

Although the truce held, its fragility was exposed the morning after last month’s spring statement, when Johnson did his own bit of distancing. Remarkably, he promised more help for people struggling with the cost of living crisis, after the chancellor showed a tin ear to such demands.

While Johnson’s ratings among Conservative Party members have bounced back, Sunak’s have plummeted.

They are two people on a see-saw. Sunak would accept equilibrium, but Johnson wants to be on top. There’s even chatter in Toryland that he might throw his chancellor off the see-saw entirely in a reshuffle this summer. It’s probably about reminding Sunak who is boss, and we don’t know whether Johnson will be in a strong enough position to do it.

With the chancellor’s ratings among the public also falling, some Tories have written him off as a leadership contender. It’s premature, but such views can become set in stone and very hard to shift.

The chancellor claims it is wrong to use his wife to attack him. But some Tories sense a naivety stemming from his relative political inexperience; three years ago, he was still in his first post as a junior local government minister. As chancellor, he is responsible for tax policy, including on non-doms. If officials working on tax matters were unaware of Murty’s tax status, that matters. Perhaps he was also naive to think her tax arrangements would not become public – and unsustainable – when he has raised taxes to their highest level for more than 70 years.

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For Sunak, there will be many more questions – and, if he wants to remain at the top of politics, he and his wife will have to provide answers, however uncomfortable that might be.

If Sunak fails, it will not be because he is rich. It will not be because of his family’s penthouse flat in California, or mansion in Yorkshire; his four cars; his £335 trainers or £180 “smart” coffee mug. I don’t agree that he is too wealthy to become PM, as some have argued, because most Britons are not interested in waging class war.

However, his wealth has become a legitimate issue because of his political judgement. Or, more accurately, his catastrophic misjudgement in raising taxes while not providing more help for low-income families last month, when living standards are about to see their sharpest drop since 1956-57.

He needs to correct his huge mistake quickly; waiting until the autumn, as he intends to do, will be too late – for Sunak himself, and, more importantly, for millions of families.