Threats and trickery as Team Boris tightened thumbscrews

As MPs filed in for last round of voting, they could talk of little but rivals’ “disgusting jiggery pokery”.

Jeremy Hunt and Michael Gove were the last two standing against Boris Johnson in the last round of voting. Picture: AFP.

Conservative MPs have a reputation for being the world’s most duplicitous electorate. Yesterday they earned it afresh.

The first victim on a day of vintage Westminster skulduggery was Sajid Javid. His campaign team began Thursday confident that they would hold on to his 38 votes from the third ballot, so they started to discuss how they could win more and pull off an upset by eliminating Michael Gove or Jeremy Hunt.

Then Team Boris got in touch. “Your guy has lost five votes this morning,” a message sent to one of Mr Javid’s MP supporters said. “Isn’t it time you came on side?”

In the event, the text from Mr Johnson’s lieutenant was wrong: Mr Javid lost only four votes. But it set the tone for a day of dirty tricks allegations whose stench will linger over any Johnson government and make the delicate task of reunifying the Conservative Party even harder.

As MPs filed into committee room 14 in the Palace of Westminster to vote yesterday, several could talk of little else but “jiggery pokery”. One said they had seen a text sent to a junior minister still backing a non-Johnson candidate that read: “How are you enjoying your job? Do you want to carry on?”

A source on a rival campaign went further and said that supporters had been directly threatened by other MPs supporting Mr Johnson. “People have been told that they’ll never get a job unless they switch sides. One was even threatened that their private life would be exposed. It’s pretty disgusting stuff.”

An MP said: “Some people have been pretty shaken up by it. The thing is he didn’t need to do this. He’s going to win anyway. This just leaves a very bad taste.”

The Gove camp believe they bore the brunt of an operation designed to avoid Mr Johnson facing the opponent he most feared. Early in the day one MP, not aligned to Mr Gove, said that the Johnson team had been discussing whether to use their supporters to “take out Gove in the morning or in the afternoon”, adding: “I think they are leaning towards dropping him from the highest height possible.”

Michael Gove was devastated to be dumped from the race. Picture: AFP.

It was prophetic. Mr Gove nosed ahead of Mr Hunt into second place for the first time in the first ballot of the day, before slipping behind in the evening.

Fairly or not, most speculation swirled around the actions of Gavin Williamson. The former minister — who famously kept a tarantula on his desk when he was chief whip — signed up to Mr Johnson’s campaign shortly after his sacking as Defence Secretary by Theresa May over allegations that he was behind a leak.

Mr Williamson’s enthusiastic role in Mr Johnson’s campaign surprised many in Westminster, not least because he had played a similar role in Mrs May’s 2016 campaign — telling MPs he had backed her because she had the best shot of “stopping Boris”.

But MPs in all camps were deeply suspicious of the sudden surge in the number of proxy votes yesterday — about 90 MPs, almost a third of the Conservative benches, trusted a colleague with their vote, compared with between 20 and 30 in the early rounds.

“It’s very fishy,” one MP backing Jeremy Hunt said. “I don’t know what Gavin [Williamson] is up to. But I’ll take it any day of the week if he sends them our way.”

Jeremy Hunt pipped Michael Gove into second place. Picture: Getty Images.

One MP supporting Mr Johnson feared that Mr Williamson was now “too divisive” and “tainted by this campaign” to be restored to his old job of chief whip. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the chief whip is someone a bit unexpected, with a whips’ office full of Gavin’s people below them. Maybe you make Gavin leader of the Commons. It’s a boring job that no one really wants to do, he can do lots of parliamentary work behind the scenes and he gets his seat at the cabinet table back.”

Some think that Mr Johnson might give the job of chief whip to Grant Shapps, the former party chairman who has become a key behind-the-scenes operative for his campaign.

Mr Williamson was known to be furious at briefings by Mr Johnson’s supporters that they intended to “humiliate” Mr Gove by manipulating the result. He has consistently strongly denied allegations of dirty tricks when challenged by other MPs.

Amid growing accusations of unfair manipulation by the Johnson team, Steve Baker, deputy chairman of the European Research Group of hardline Brexiteers, messaged the group on Whatsapp to warn them “not to start playing silly games”, a source said. “The message was that we needed to keep the momentum and not be deflected by rows over voting,” the source added.

Another MP told The Times he had offered to vote tactically on Wednesday night but was rebuffed by Mr Johnson’s team because they were determined to have the votes of more than 50 per cent of MPs in the final ballot.

Many suspect that vote-lending happened, but that it was not directed and a group of disparate MPs decided of their own accord that they preferred Mr Hunt to Mr Gove.

One MP backing Mr Johnson left the voting booth and immediately explained at length why the foreign secretary was preferable to the environment secretary in a run-off. “Jeremy Hunt would have fitted into any Conservative cabinet for the last 150 years,” the MP said. “Charterhouse head boy, son of an admiral, background in business: he’s safe. The Tory party needs a safety valve who members will feel comfortable voting for if Boris implodes, not someone who looks a bit weird.”

Mr Hunt’s own backers fuelled suspicion of vote-lending. Liam Fox, the international trade secretary, declared: “There’s more churn here than an average washing machine. Oh, I’m sure it’s not organised. Perish the thought.”

The clearest evidence of dishonesty was presented when five supporters of Mr Javid declared their support for Mr Johnson between the two ballots yesterday — yet Mr Johnson’s support only rose by three. “It doesn’t make sense”, a rival campaigner said.

But Team Gove’s indignation was undermined when a text emerged from Mel Stride, his campaign manager, urging supporters of Mr Johnson to “consider supporting Michael Gove now so that we can have two Brexiteers in the final run-off”.

Mr Hunt showed scant sign of nerves as the result approached. Having spent most of the day in his Commons office making calls to wavering MPs, flanked by Philip Dunne and James Cartlidge, he went to the Foreign Office in the late afternoon for meetings with the foreign ministers of the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

Half an hour before the result was due he was in his office with the Saudi minister, appearing not to hear increasingly loud knocks on the door from a frantic aide trying to tell him that it was time to wrap up and go to his Commons office. Having arrived just in time to a greeting party of his campaign team, 15 MPs and his wife, Mr Hunt pumped his first in the air and cheered when he watched Dame Cheryl Gillan announce the result.

Mr Johnson learnt that he would face Mr Hunt and not Mr Gove while being driven to Reading where he was the guest speaker at a local Conservative association event. He texted his aides to congratulate and thank them, then went to woo the members.

The Times