Months of rising tension came to a head in ten destructive minutes

Rishi Sunak decided enough was enough. The chancellor of the exchequer had hoped the spotlight would be on a £6bn policy. Instead, it was once again on Boris Johnson’s conduct.

Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson has now been abandoned by his Health Secretary Sajid Javid (L) and his Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak after yet another sleaze scandal.

By yesterday morning Rishi Sunak had decided that enough was enough. The chancellor of the exchequer had hoped that Wednesday’s media coverage would be focused on the increase in national insurance thresholds — a £6 billion policy.

Instead it became clear that the spotlight would once again be on Boris Johnson’s conduct. The revelation that No 10 had falsely claimed that the prime minister had been unaware of serious allegations about Chris Pincher, the deputy chief whip, had unravelled over an agonising four-day period. Simon Clarke, the chief secretary to the Treasury who was due to do the morning broadcast round to promote the rise in national insurance thresholds, was said to have pulled out amid concerns about defending the indefensible.

While Sunak was telling aides that he was going to quit, his friend Sajid Javid, the health secretary, had reached the same conclusion. Like Sunak, Javid had clashed repeatedly with Johnson over tax and healthcare spending. Like Sunak, he was said to have been alarmed by the mounting revelations about Johnson’s conduct.

He told the prime minister, in a one-to-one meeting yesterday afternoon, that he could no longer support him. At 6.02pm he published his resignation letter, suggesting that the prime minister had failed to show “humility, grip and new direction”.

“I regret to say ... that it is clear to me that this situation will not change under your leadership, and you have therefore lost my confidence,” he said.

Nine minutes later Sunak followed with his own resignation letter, highlighting fundamental economic differences with Johnson over tax and spending. “I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that we cannot continue like this,” he said.

While both camps claim that the resignations were not co-ordinated, the timing makes that difficult for even their closest allies to believe.

The two men are firm friends. Sunak served as chief secretary to the Treasury when Javid was chancellor and then succeeded him when Javid resigned on a point of principle after clashes with Johnson. Both men are Star Wars fans, with Sunak once referring to Javid as the “Jedi master”.

Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak has quit.

Sunak’s relationship with Johnson deteriorated in September last year. While the two men were in lock-step for much of the pandemic, the prime minister’s decision to push ahead with an increase in national insurance to pay for social care was opposed by his chancellor. The mistrust was such that, at one point, Johnson suggested on a call with his closest aides that he could sack the chancellor — comments that were interpreted by some as a joke but which others took seriously.

Relations never fully recovered. Sunak was publicly critical of Johnson over the Downing Street parties scandal. When he was unexpectedly fined for attending a celebration to mark the prime minister’s 56th birthday, while waiting for another meeting, he considered tendering his resignation.

He went so far as to draft a resignation letter to Johnson before agonising over whether to send it. In the end, he was persuaded against quitting by allies who said he would jeopardise his chances of ever entering No 10 himself.

Britain's Health Secretary Sajid Javid has also resigned.

While Sunak was wracked over questions of morality, the fiscal differences between the two men were becoming more stark. Matters came to a head over a joint speech on the economy next week. The prime minister was said to have been pushing for tax cuts early next year; Sunak was concerned about the viability of tax cuts at a time of rocketing inflation. No 10 was pushing for a VAT cut; Sunak was concerned that doing so would only bake in inflation, leading to a longer, deeper recession.

Javid is also understood to have been unhappy for some time. The role of health secretary was not one he had coveted and proved to be a difficult fit with his Thatcherite instincts. Nonetheless, he clashed repeatedly with Johnson and Sunak over funding for the National Health Service, most recently on the issue of pay. He became the subject of targeted briefings from Downing Street and allies of the prime minister. One said last night: “He’s not got a grip of the NHS — no big ideas, no answers to questions, no grasp of policy. He was drowning and he knew it.”

Britain's Health Secretary Sajid Javid (3rd L) and Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak (C) listen with colleagues as Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson (C left) speaks at the start of a cabinet meeting in Downing Streeton July 5.

For Javid, however, concerns about Johnson’s integrity made up his mind. Having struggled to defend him during the parties scandal, the prime minister’s extraordinary defence of Pincher proved a step too far.

Even before Sunak and Javid’s resignations, those close to Johnson feared the tide was beginning to turn against him. Over the previous 24 hours, they had been picking up rumours of a fresh attempt to oust him by Tory MPs who were looking for an immediate change to the leadership rules, to allow a contest to take place before the summer recess. They were also beginning to question the loyalty of some in the cabinet amid a widespread view that the Pincher affair had been badly handled.

One longstanding ally said he feared Johnson would be finished before the recess. “It just feels as if we’re in a death spiral. There is nothing he can do, like changing policy or changing personnel, that will make any difference. There are too many people in the parliamentary party who have simply given up on this administration.”

A woman photographs the Carlton Club, a private members club founded in 1832, where Conservative MP Chris Pincher is alleged to have groped two men.

But the crunch came sooner than expected with a letter from Lord McDonald of Salford, a former Foreign Office permanent secretary. In it, he accused Johnson of lying about his knowledge of past complaints against Pincher. Johnson — through his spokesman and ministers sent to do interviews — had always claimed to have no knowledge of past allegations against Pincher, but McDonald blew that out of the water.

The Tory former schools minister Nick Gibb called for the cabinet to oust him: “The public have lost trust in the prime minister. It is [now] for the cabinet to stand up for what they believe in,” he told PM on BBC Radio 4. Gibb said that the UK was going through a “democratic crisis” similar to that in the United States under President Trump.

But some fear that if Johnson is ousted, it will not end the bloodletting. They draw parallels with Margaret Thatcher and warn that the divisions between Johnson loyalists and those who moved to depose him will be bitter and long lasting. One minister said: “We’re going to destroy ourselves as a party.”

The Times