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Your support makes all the difference.Cabinet ministers and senior Tories have warned Boris Johnson that “nobody is unsackable”, demanded he get behind Theresa May and made clear they do not want a leadership contest.
The backlash against Mr Johnson was spelt out in the back rooms at the Conservative conference, at fringe events and from the main stage, where successive big hitters called for unity.
One cabinet minister told The Independent it “needs to stop” after Mr Johnson again publicly demanded changes to Ms May’s Brexit plans at the weekend, while another ex-minister said the Foreign Secretary looked “incredibly disloyal”.
Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson called for an end to the leadership “psychodrama”, Ms May’s deputy Damian Green demanded cabinet discussions take place in private and Scottish Secretary David Mundell mocked Mr Johnson’s electoral appeal.
Ms May had attempted to bat away questions on Mr Johnson’s repeated demands in an interview, but failed to kill the issue, with the Foreign Secretary making a high-profile arrival at conference in the afternoon.
But with their party facing the multiple challenges of Brexit, a resurgent Jeremy Corbyn and a public backlash against free market capitalism, frustration with Mr Johnson’s antics became too much for some cabinet members.
One told The Independent his media interventions were not endearing him to people he would need to ever stand a chance of being leader, adding: “It’s not the strategy I would adopt.”
The minister went on: “People who aspire to lead the Conservatives always forget who the audience is. It’s not the membership, it’s their colleagues in Parliament.
“There is absolutely no appetite for a leadership election now. If you said to backbenchers, ‘Let’s have a leadership election in the Autumn,’ they would be horrified.”
Asked if Mr Johnson is “unsackable”, the individual said: “Nobody is unsackable.”
Work and Pensions Secretary David Gauke was also asked if the Foreign Secretary is unsackable, answering that all frontbenchers “serve at the pleasure of the Prime Minister”.
Cabinet minister Mr Mundell poked fun at his fellow minister at a fringe event in which he was asked about Mr Johnson’s potential appeal to young voters.
He said: “I’m sure none of my colleagues indulge in hypothetical questions, although I do recall Boris Johnson once stood for rector of Edinburgh University and you can look at the result of that.”
In the 2006 vote, Mr Johnson finished third in the race for the university post.
The sentiment was echoed by another cabinet minister, who told The Independent: “Boris is Boris and has made his point, but it needs to stop. It’s destabilising. It’s not in the national interest.”
It came after leading Tory women had already rounded on the Foreign Secretary, with Scottish Leader Ms Davidson hitting out at “over-optimism” from Brexiteers after Mr Johnson had hailed Britain’s “glorious” future, ex-cabinet minister Nicky Morgan writing in The Independent that Mr Johnson had no place in a “responsible government” and ex-minister Anna Soubry tweeting he should “grow up or go”.
Another ex-frontbencher said: “Some Brexiteers would have been happy with his interventions but at the end of it they want our party to deliver Brexit. It just looks incredibly disloyal.”
First Secretary of State Mr Green appeared to deliver a thinly-veiled rebuke to Mr Johnson over his public outspokenness on Brexit, having called for unity from the main stage earlier in the day.
He told Radio 5 Live’s Pienaar’s Politics: “It is extremely sensible when you are in government to express your views in private rather than public.
“It’s advice for everyone. It’s advice for all my colleagues at all times. That if you feel strongly about something then make your pitch in private.
“And then, when the Government has come to a collective decision, stick to it.”
Ms Davidson, who has support within the party as a potential rival to Boris Johnson, used a fringe event to attack the “Tory psychodrama” surrounding the leadership speculation of recent days.
Then on the main stage she demanded unity over Brexit: “People who were asked to make a decision, did, and now want to deliver that decision in the best way possible.
“We now must unite behind our leader to get the best deal for us and the right deal for Europe as well.”
Tory Welsh leader Andrew Davis told party delegates in his speech: “The stakes are high and it is incumbent on all of us in the Conservative Party to unite and put personal agendas to one side for the greater good.
“The challenge upon us is immense and we must work united behind our Prime Minister as she leads us on this historic journey.”
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