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When the UK completely leaves the European Union on December 31 (the form of that trade deal or no deal will be decided in the next few days), the man who was instrumental in bringing about Brexit will also leave.
Dominic cummings, the prime minister’s senior adviser, was the architect of the Vote Leave campaign that won the 2016 referendum and then returned to Downing Street in 2019 to pass Boris Johnson’s Brexit agreement.
It was Mr. Cummings who designed the “Oven Ready Brexi“General election victory won by the largest conservative majority since the Thatcher years.
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While he is leaving Downing Street, his impact on Britain will be felt long after his departure.
But while Cummings has played a vital role in this country’s Brexit journey, his unmatched power and brutal way of doing politics (remember the ouster of 21 Conservative MPs, including former Chancellors Sir Ken Clarke and Philip Hammond in the heyday of the Brexit wars?) – has over time corroded Johnson’s relationship with his party, with Whitehall and the media.
Cummings also seriously damaged the prime minister’s relationship with the public after that trip to Durham in the middle of the lockdown that resulted in a national scandal and that Cummings became a household name, for all the wrong reasons.
The prime minister spent a great deal of political capital to save an adviser that many of his own MPs and members of the public believed should go.
If rot took hold of the Durham and Barnard Castle debacle, the leaks about the second lockdown, U-turns and political failures on COVID, wrapped in an abrasive style of operation, ultimately proved fatal.
“The prime minister is the best analyst there is, he sees the problems,” an informant from Number 10 told me this week about the personnel change at the heart of Operation Number 10. “The prime minister wants to change the state of cheer up”.
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Let’s drop the confrontational style and go back to a more conventional and conciliatory Number 10. The big question is how will this change the emphasis of the Johnson administration and its political goals?
One figure tells me that talks are taking place on the reshuffle of the Policy Unit with talks on the current head of policy to the prime minister, Munira Mirza, who will move into the House of Lords and be replaced by a new face; names mentioned include MP and former Policy Exchange chief Neil O’Brien, advisor Henry Newman or perhaps even Oliver Lewis.
The prime minister also wants to improve the ties between the political unit and the parliamentary party, something that MPs will certainly welcome.
These changes are part of a broader push within Downing Street to curtail the “culture wars” that have characterized this number 10, be it Brexit, the BBC reform and broader media wars, or trans issues.
“She wants to focus more on the issues that matter to her,” says one person inside Issue 10. “The environment, the well-being of women and girls, large infrastructure and crime.”
The most immediate and critical political decision facing the prime minister is whether to strike a free trade agreement with the EU before the end of the transition period on December 31.
Lord Frost, Britain’s chief negotiator, was “very unhappy” at the departure of his friend Cain and briefly considered resigning, but stays to watch the talks, which have stalled in the last week as the deadline for a deal nears November.
Number 10 has insisted that Biden’s victory has not affected his negotiating strategy, but cabinet sources believe that the shift in power has changed the impetus to reach an agreement and maintain a harmonious relationship with the EU.
There is no deal without Trump in the White House all of a sudden it seems very against the spirit of the age and Britain’s global interests.
Beyond Brexit, the Prime Minister’s level-up policy will be reformulated as “Build Back Better”; the question is whether he can put a new team around him that attacks his political goals with the fervor and determination of Cummings and Cain.
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That agenda will, in part, be taken up by the prime minister’s new press secretary, Allegra Stratton, who, according to allies, is also concerned about this agenda, having spent years reporting from across the country as ITV’s national editor before. to pass the government.
A year that has brought us the most serious global pandemic in remembrance and that will be marked by Brexit, the biggest change in British foreign policy in decades; It ends when the prime minister decides he needs a reboot.
Johnson is sometimes accused of wavering, but this week he has been the opposite, deciding that the two advisers who were once his best assets are now liabilities.
A new year will usher in a new era for Johnson’s No. 10.
