Boris Johnson plans to quit No.10 and “make money and have fun” within two years after the next election, his former chief adviser Dominic Cummings has claimed.
In a new blog, Cummings made the bombshell claim that Johnson has a “clear plan” to resign as prime minister by 2025 or 2026 because he doesn’t want to go “on and on” in the job.
Cummings said the plan meant the UK would be living with “chronic dysfunction” in government for around another five years, unless “some force intervenes” to remove Johnson.
The former Vote Leave chief also said that Johnson’s promise of a public inquiry had been designed to delay official findings on his performance until after he left office.
The next election is currently scheduled to take place in May 2024, but the abolition of fixed-term parliament legislation means he could hold one a year earlier.
In his blog, Cummings wrote: “Unlike other PMs, this one has a clear plan to leave at the latest a couple of years after the next election, he wants to make money and have fun not ‘go on and on’. So we either live with chronic dysfunction for another ~5 years or some force intervenes.”
He added that his main concern in revealing private information was the Johnson had repeatedly lied to parliament and the public over failures in the Covid pandemic.
“The public inquiry cannot fix this. It will not start for years and it is designed to punt the tricky parts until after this PM has gone,” he wrote.
In the same blog, Cummings revealed a Whatsapp message in which the PM appeared to label Matt Hancock “totally fucking hopeless” for delays in getting a UK testing system scaled up quickly.
Johnson’s press secretary later played down the Cummings claims.
“The PM has actually been asked this before and has said himself. it’s utter nonsense. That still stands,” she said.
She added: “As you know the prime minister was elected in 2019 and continues to focus on delivering on the manifesto we were elected on and leading the country out of the pandemic.”