Inside story of Tories’ Borexit: How BoJo’s career was left in tatters a week after he thought he’d be next PM
As the Blond Bombshell's career lies in tatters, we look back at the week that brought about the end of his political life
DESPITE knowing each other for 30 years since their Oxford days, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove have never had an easy relationship.
A strong rivalry emerged between them in the 1990s when they competed as star newspaper columnists on The Times and the Daily Telegraph.
But it was going over the top together in February this year to oppose their friend as well as boss, David Cameron, that brought them together.
The two Tory titans decided to come out for the campaign to leave the EU after a dinner party with their wives at Boris’s £3million Islington town house.
A close bond swiftly developed during daily and gruelling appearances on the campaign stump.
“They went to war together,” one aide said.
As the dust was still settling on the shock referendum victory on the morning of Friday, June 24, Mr Gove and Boris appeared together to make short victory speeches for the TV cameras at Vote Leave’s HQ.
Both men were also stunned by the Prime Minister’s resignation just two hours earlier.
But it was also during a private meeting after their statements in the Thames riverside skyscraper block that Mr Gove told Boris he would not run against him to be Mr Cameron’s successor.
The pair agreed to meet again on Sunday after they had collected their thoughts and got some sleep.
Boris spent Saturday playing cricket on the Althorp estate of Earl Spencer, Princess Diana’s brother and his old friend.
The next day, Mr Gove drove down to Boris’s country cottage near the Oxfordshire town of Thame to join up with his key campaign lieutenants, the Northern Ireland Minister Ben Wallace and Tory MPs Jake Berry, Nigel Adams and Amanda Milling.
Westminster office space had been secured for the campaign in Greycoat Place, 300 yards from Parliament.
Boris’s leadership team, which had been quietly signing up MPs with soft sell drinks and dinners over the past two years, was merged with Mr Gove’s key followers, led by Skills Minister Nick Boles.
They were furious at Boris for refusing to make good on promises and after a few drinks that anger really started to boil over
But the campaign did not get off to a good start and trust between the two factions was short.
There was an initial row over how photographers and the BBC had found out about the secret Sunday strategy session, with Sarah Vine getting the blame from Team Boris.
Team Gove immediately demanded to see the full list of around 90 firm pledges of support from MPs that Team Boris had diligently amassed.
Team Boris refused.
A key Boris figure said: “There was always an odd smell about Gove’s involvement.
“Something wasn’t right from the beginning.”
Boris also penned a disastrous column in the Daily Telegraph on Monday, in which he was lampooned for promising both freedom of movement across Europe for Brits as well as a tough points-based immigration system back here – a political impossibility.
That put the campaign on the backfoot for most of Monday, with an aide eventually admitting it was a mistake and Boris had been “tired” when he rattled it out.
Last night leaked emails showed Mr Gove had not only seen the column but had also made amendments to it.
A flashpoint also developed between Gove and Johnson over whether Boris should give George Osborne a top job in his Cabinet.
As the Chancellor’s old friend, Mr Gove was desperate to bring him on board their operation and bombarded Mr Osborne with texts and calls last weekend.
But the Chancellor wanted to wait to see how the race played out, and Boris had no intention of offering his old rival anything anyway.
Michael Gove was also irritated that his former special adviser and key Vote Leave strategist Dominic Cummings had been banned from joining the Boris campaign.
Brilliant but abrasive Mr Cummings was seen by Boris’s key aides as destructive trouble maker.
By Tuesday a planned breakfast meeting with Australian election supremo Sir Lynton Crosby began to resemble a marriage counselling meeting.
The pair were spotted entering the lavish HQ of Crosby’s CTF Partners consultancy early in the morning, and were there for several hours.
Even though he ran David Cameron’s majority winning election campaign in 2015, Crosby has remained close to the former Mayor after working for him in 2012.
However he was behind Mr Cameron’s sacking of Michael Gove as Education Secretary in 2014, citing polling that showed he was deeply unpopular with teachers.
After campaign tactics and numbers had been leaked to MPs, Crosby came on board and “read the riot act” to MPs and aides on the campaign, which further soured the mood.
Boris’s notorious time keeping and forgetfulness had also began to infuriate the always polite Michael Gove.
At 10am on Wednesday morning Boris had promised to address a key meeting of 50 wavering Tory MPs and ministers who had backed Remain.
But he cancelled it with just 15 minutes notice.
The outreach exercise blew up, with one Minister left raging: “This is just two f---ing fingers to virtually half the party because he basically thinks he’s got enough support.”
An article penned in the Daily Mail on Wednesday by Mr Gove’s columnist wife Sarah Vine only worsened the distrust inside Boris’s now chaotic operation.
In what may have just been a slip of the tongue, she said the referendum result meant “we” now have to carry out the will of 17 million people.
But the comment raised eyebrows among MPs.
Later that day, an email Ms Vine she sent her husband and his top team of advisors leaked out, in which she spurred him on to get tough with Boris for “specific assurances” and urged Mr Gove to “be your stubborn best”.
Ms Vine is known to be very ambitious for Michael and has told friends in the past that she believes he would be a great Prime Minister.
One Westminster watcher has even dubbed her “the Lady Macbeth” of the referendum fight.
But the final – and terminal – flashpoint came over a missing letter and a promised Tweet that mysteriously never appeared.
On Wednesday evening, most of the Cabinet and the Prime Minister were hosting donors at the plush Conservative Summer Party at the exclusive Hurlingham Club in West London.
Behind the scenes, horse trading and promise making was in full swing — and there have been differing versions of what happened circulating ever since.
A source close to Mr Johnson claimed: “Boris promised to make Andrea Leadsom his Chancellor.
“He wrote it in a handwritten letter to give her at the Hurlingham party on Wednesday.
Dear Andrea, Delighted that you’re in our top 3, Yours Boris
Note from Boris Johnson to Andrea Leadsom
“The note was given to Nick Boles to pass to her, but she never received it — he said he would give it to her and he never did.”
The Sun can reveal the note read “Dear Andrea, Delighted that you’re in our top 3, Yours Boris.”
It was the result of a tense showdown between Leadsom, Boris and Michael Gove in Mr Johnson’s cramped parliamentary office on Wednesday afternoon at 2.15pm.
The support of the prominent Brexiteer was vital to Mr Johnson’s campaign, and insiders claim she was promised a job right at top of government — and moved to suspend her own bid for No 10.
Friends of Business Minister Nick Boles hit back last night claiming that Johnson had forgotten to bring the letter to the party and someone had to be dispatched back to Parliament to fetch it.
“By the time that they got the note to the party, Andrea had assumed that the deal was off and had gone home. It was a f------- farce,” a source added.
Allies of Michael Gove also said that Boris had promised to tweet out a message yesterday evening claiming that he was excited to be launching his campaign “with the Gover and Andrea tomorrow” — but it never appeared.
It was claimed that it was meant to be a signal — along with the letter — to Leadsom and her supporters confirming that the deal was on.
Across town at the headquarters of advertising agency MC Saatchi Tory backbenchers were having a drinks reception.
“Supporters of Andrea were there refreshing their phones, waiting for the tweet,” one MP said last night.
But Boris never posted the tweet.
Lots of us got in touch and pleaded that he had to do something. I told him, ‘This is unravelling. It’s falling apart’
Tory MP
“They were furious at Boris for refusing to make good on promises and after a few drinks that anger really started to boil over,” they added.
At 10.30pm, Gove’s special adviser Henry Newman was still texting MPs to invite them to Boris’s launch yesterday morning at the St Ermin’s Hotel in Westminster — ironically, a famous World War Two spies’ hangout.
But after the two parties, Gove’s allies also passed warnings to the Justice Secretary that things were not going to plan.
“Lots of us got in touch and pleaded that he had to do something,” one MP said.
“I told him ‘This is unravelling. It’s falling apart’.”
Mr Gove’s friends say he finally decided to run against Boris at midnight.
Vote Leave’s Director of Communications Paul Stephenson was drafted in by Mr Gove at 1am, and between 8am and 9am yesterday morning the Justice Secretary began telephoning Cabinet colleagues in an attempt to convince them to join his coup.
Boris was given zero warning about what was just about to happen to him yesterday morning.
Team Boris were told about Mr Gove’s decision at 8.53am yesterday morning, in a phone call from the Justice Secretary to Lynton Crosby.
Mr Gove “sounded uncomfortable”, Mr Crosby told friends.
None the wiser, Boris had just left home with wife Marina, after putting the finishing touches to the launch speech he was about to deliver at 11.30am.
Lynton Crosby demanded of Mr Gove: “Michael, why are you doing this?”
But there was no full answer.
Mr Gove instead promised to ring Boris straight away, but the two men never spoke.
Instead it fell to Lynton Crosby to break the news to Boris, who was driving into campaign HQ at the time.
Boris’s immediate response during the phone call was: “I probably shouldn’t run.”
He knew instantly that being abandoned by his own campaign manager and then being abused by him would have been a very hard blow to recover from.
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A senior Boris campaign figure insisted: “Boris felt very let down by Gove’s duplicity."
Boris was also worried by the number of MPs he would be left with after a mass defection to Mr Gove of up to 40 MPs that his team had orchestrated overnight — which was close to half of Boris’s entire support.
Crushed by the psychological blow of the betrayal, Boris decided to pull out.
While some of Boris’s team were angry with him for not choosing to fight Michael Gove, others sympathised with him.
Prominent Leave campaigner Tory MP and Boris Steve Baker said: “Boris just got tired of people knifing him in the front and back.”
Six hours that rocked the Tories
HERE is how events unfolded yesterday in the Tory race.
9.08am: Michael Gove says he will run, saying Boris Johnson “cannot provide the leadership or build the team for the task”.
9.17am: Andrea Leadsom reveals she will be a candidate.
9.30am: Theresa May makes a speech launching her bid to become the next Prime Minister.
11.11am: Education Secretary Nicky Morgan confirms she will not run. Minutes later, so does Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt.
11.53am: Mr Johnson rules himself out, an announcement that shocks Westminster.
12.05pm: Liam Fox makes a speech confirming that he has entered the race.
12.08pm: Mrs May, Mr Gove, Stephen Crabb, Dr Fox and Ms Leadsom are confirmed as candidates by Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Committee.
2.51pm: Mr Johnson’s father lashes out at Mr Gove, likening him to the killers of Julius Caesar.