We’re waiting for Johnson to fall, say Hunt allies

The former foreign secretary has positioned himself as head of the Conservative party’s anti-Boris faction.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and former foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt in happier times. Picture: Getty Images

Boris Johnson’s leadership of the Conservative party will “implode” over the coming months without the need for further “plots or coups”, supporters of Jeremy Hunt said on Tuesday.

The former foreign secretary effectively put himself as the head of the anti-Johnson faction before Monday’s confidence vote by urging Tory MPs to change their leader or lose the next election.

Following the result, Mr Hunt’s allies said that he did not intend to destabilise the prime minister further, arguing that such measures would be counter-productive and reduce the chances of him winning any future leadership race.

They also said that Mr Hunt had not instigated Monday’s vote by urging his supporters to submit letters of no confidence in the Prime Minister, and that he had not submitted a letter himself.

However, Mr Hunt’s move infuriated Johnson loyalists, who claimed that he was already running a fully fledged leadership campaign and offering potential cabinet jobs to supporters.

Jeremy Hunt’s call to get rid of Boris Johnson or lose the next election has infuriated Johnson loyalists. Picture: AFP

They said that he had approached senior Tory chairmen of select committees in an effort to win their support, and even suggested that he could bring Theresa May back into government in a senior role such as foreign secretary. One cabinet minister suggested that George Osborne had been advising the Hunt team – a claim that the former chancellor of the exchequer has categorically denied.

Mr Hunt’s supporters said that although he had made no secret of his leadership ambitions in the past he was “absolutely not” running an organised campaign to unseat Mr Johnson. “No one is running or co-ordinating any campaign,” said one. “No one is going around offering anyone jobs. It is just absurd.”

Sources close to Mr Hunt said that he had been contacted by MPs from across the party after Nadine Dorries, the culture secretary, publicly attacked him before the vote on Monday. In a series of tweets and interviews that were authorised by Downing Street, Ms Dorries accused Mr Hunt of failing to prepare the National Health Service (NHS) for a pandemic such as Covid when he was health secretary.

“Our pandemic preparation during [your] six years as health secretary was found wanting and inadequate,” she said. “Your duplicity right now in destabilising the party and country to serve your own personal ambition, more so.”

One senior Conservative backbencher pointed out that Ms Dorries had been a senior minister in the Department of Health since 2019 and also bore responsibility for the slow initial response to Covid.

One supporter of Mr Hunt described Ms Dorries as their “deep secret agent” in the government. “She, more than anyone, is turning people away from Johnson and towards Jeremy.”

An ally of Mr Hunt said that his strategy would be not to become a figurehead for anti-Boris opposition but instead to allow Mr Johnson to deal with the problems that confronted him. They added that by the end of the month, after the results of two key by-elections, it would be clear if Mr Hunt was right when he said that the party needed to change its leadership.

Others said they believed that there would not be another leadership challenge until the autumn, by which stage the rebels would have the extra 30 votes they needed to unseat Mr Johnson without any formal campaign.

“There were a number of colleagues who were nervous this time round but now they’ve seen the strength of the opposition they’ll be with us,” said one Hunt supporter. “Johnson is going to implode without any need for coups and plots.”

Meanwhile, Ben Wallace has not ruled out putting his name forward for prime minister should Mr Johnson step down. Speaking en route to Iceland, the Defence Secretary said that in the past he had said he was not interested in the top job, but there was a “problem to solve”. Asked if he would consider running if he had the backing of colleagues, he said: “I’ve often said I’m not really interested, as I’m interested in being Defence Secretary.”

Mr Wallace, the MP for Wyre and Preston North, continued: “I’m a politician. Ultimately I’m in the business of trying to problem solve and make the country better for people.”

He went on to say that he believed Mr Johnson would last until the next election despite the results of his confidence vote.

The Times