Robert Peston Robert Peston

Why Dominic Cummings had to go

Dominic Cummings in Downing Street (Photo: Reuters)

On 24 July last year, I wrote that the government of Boris Johnson was being taken over by Dominic Cummings and his Vote Leave team. That was not hyperbole. Since then, both the reality of Cummings and the myths about him, have defined Johnson’s first 16 months as Prime Minister.

Which is why, as one Downing Street insider put it to me, Cummings’ departure ‘feels like a fire has raged through the building.’

For all the controversy stirred up by Cummings – or perhaps because of it, to an extent – Johnson owes a substantial debt to the eccentric special adviser who organised the referendum campaign for leaving the EU.

In the spring and summer of 2019, the Tory party was in a condition of self-destructive civil war, and a negotiated deal to leave the EU seemed a remote prospect.

Cummings entered Downing Street and – for months – ran the centre of government more or less as though he was running a campaign, with two objectives.

First, to secure a negotiated exit from the EU. Second, to win a general election so that the negotiated exit could be ratified by Parliament.

In the process he trampled on constitutional and parliamentary conventions. He made enemies, astonishing numbers of them. But he got the job done.

Johnson secured a majority in Parliament no Tory leader had enjoyed since the 1980s. And Cummings’s authority within Johnson’s administration was reinforced.

Cummings talked openly about how Vote Leave was running the country. His allies were around him in Downing Street or in important jobs as advisers in the Treasury, Department of Health, and the Foreign Office. This was galling to MPs and ministers, who resented that he had incomparably more power than they did – largely because Johnson lent the power inherent in his office to Cummings.

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Robert Peston
Written by
Robert Peston
Robert Peston is Political Editor of ITV News and host of the weekly political discussion show Peston. His articles originally appeared on his ITV News blog.

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