The plot against the PM

After the implosion of Liz Truss’s premiership, Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak met to discuss which of them should succeed her. Neither wanted to back down to make way for the other. Late one Saturday night, they discussed whether a way could be found that would suit them both. It could not. As they walked out of the room to meet their aides, Johnson joked that Sunak had agreed to be his chancellor (again). Sunak then patted his former boss on the back telling him: see you at the debates.

But there were no debates. The following evening, Johnson released a statement saying he would not stand – despite ‘a very good chance that I would be successful’ – given how few votes he had among the still shell-shocked Tory MPs. ‘You can’t govern effectively unless you have a united party in parliament.’ Sunak agreed. Mindful that his own mandate was weak – there had been no Sunak election victory – he felt his only option was to broker a fragile ceasefire with jobs for the various factions. The Tory wars, he feared, were simply adjourned.

The ceasefire has now been abandoned. The wars have begun again. Johnson was desperate for his full resignation honours list to be approved but Sunak demurred, signing off only the names presented to him after vetting – and the two men are once again enemies. Two of Johnson’s allies, Nadine Dorries and Nigel Adams, have announced that they’ll resign their seats along with him, triggering painful by-elections. Against a backdrop of borrowing rates rising to Liz Truss levels (which were, for her, terminal) this amounts to a fairly well-aimed political assassination campaign. Johnson, convinced that Sunak helped to bring him down, is having his revenge.