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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s top adviser, Dominic Cummings, is reportedly leaving his post in Downing Street at the end of the year.
Cummings told the BBC that “the rumors about me threatening to resign are fabricated” after speculation that he would follow communications director Lee Cain in leaving number 10.
However, he said his “position has not changed since my January blog” when he wrote that he expected to become “largely redundant” by the end of 2020.
The BBC also quoted a Downing Street source as saying that Cummings would be “out of government” at Christmas.
It comes just a day after a bitter power struggle at No. 10 prompted Cain’s resignation.
He had been offered the position of chief of staff, but a backlash among conservatives and Johnson’s inner circle eventually led him Wednesday to announce his departure from No. 10 rather than a promotion.
Cummings and Cain are close political allies, having worked together since the Brexit campaign.
Mr. Cummings was said to be unhappy with the way his friend had been treated.
The Telegraph reported that an “associate” of Cain said the communications chief’s departure was the “beginning of the end for Dom.”
“Lee is the person who has been covering Dom’s flank 24 hours a day and will be leaving soon,” the source told the newspaper.
After the Brexit vote, Cummings became a popular hero to many who voted to leave, and Johnson hired him as a senior adviser at No. 10 when he became prime minister last year.
The appointment of the abrasive former campaign manager raised eyebrows in Westminster, especially since it was discovered that he had flouted Parliament earlier in the year for refusing to testify to MPs investigating misinformation, and was a prominent critic of the Whitehall machine. .
But Cummings has built a reputation as someone who did things differently, working toward his goal of reshaping Whitehall, issuing a recruitment call for data scientists, economists, and “weirdos and misfits with strange abilities” to shake up the Civil Service. .
In April, Cummings made headlines when it emerged that he had been present at meetings of the official Emergency Scientific Advisory Group that coordinated the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Downing Street insisted there was nothing wrong with his attendance, but opposition MPs and some scientists suggested he risked political interference with Sage’s science councils.
Cummings also drew criticism when he was caught allegedly breaking lockdown rules by visiting his parents’ home in Durham while recovering from Covid-19.
Steve Baker, former chair of the Retiring European Research Group, described him as a “dominant figure who regards responsibility with contempt.”
Conservative MPs have urged Johnson to use the events to reshape the team within Downing Street and reconnect with the parliamentary party, some of whom feel that advisers have “lost” him over the past year.
Charles Walker, vice chairman of the 1922 Committee, told BBC Two’s Newsnight: “If Boris, the prime minister, gets the chief of staff position right, puts the right person in that position, he will get his job back. standard firmly in the middle of the Conservative parliamentary party.
“We feel that we have lost him during the last year. We want him back, he belongs to us, he does not belong to the advisers, he belongs to the parliamentary party that elected him and was elected in the last general legislature.”
The prime minister’s official spokesman, James Slack, who confirmed he would replace Cain when the new year rolls around, insisted the bitter dispute does not distract Johnson from the national crisis.
“You have seen from the prime minister this week that he is absolutely focused on taking all the necessary measures to prepare the country to defeat the coronavirus,” the spokesman said yesterday.
Slack, a former Daily Mail reporter who also served as Theresa May’s official spokesperson when she ran the country, said she will remain a public official when she succeeds Cain.
In his resignation statement, Mr. Cain confirmed that he had been offered a promotion to the key post of chief of staff to the prime minister.
The move, which would have meant that he was one of the few people at No. 10 with direct one-to-one access to Johnson, was seen as a tightening of the Vote Leave faction’s control of the Downing Street operation.
However, he was met with immediate resistance, and Johnson’s fiancee Carrie Symonds, who has clashed with Cummings in the past, strongly opposed the appointment.
Ms. Symonds is a former conservative press officer who has served as a special adviser to previous governments.
Allegra Stratton, the former broadcaster hired to host next year’s # 10 televised press conferences, was also said to have opposed the appointment.
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