Why Michael Gove’s plotting led to Boris Johnson's downfall

“There was a phone call between Boris and Gove,” says a senior member of Boris’s campaign team. “Gove wanted to be Chancellor, Deputy Prime Minister and chief Brexit negotiator. Boris agreed only on Chancellor.”

The mistrust started seeping in during a Tuesday morning meeting in the office of Lynton Crosby, the Australian politics guru behind David Cameron’s election win, who led Boris’s leadership campaign.

Crosby and his business partner, Mark Fullbrook, met Boris and Gove at 8am. Gove was accompanied by Dominic Cummings — leader of the Vote Leave campaign and previously Gove’s special adviser when he was Education Secretary. The Johnson team made it a condition of the Johnson-Gove ticket that Cummings — a controversial figure whom they didn’t trust — wouldn’t be involved.

“When Gove walks in with Cummings, we could either say ‘f*** off’ or we could grin and bear it. We went for the latter option,” said a senior member of Boris’s campaign team, “Gove acknowledged we had serious concerns about Cummings, but he assured us he’d play no role in the leadership campaign. Cummings said he was only involved in what would happen in No 10.”

Cummings is said to be saddened and mystified by the Boris-Gove split. He had talked to Gove and his wife, Sarah Vine, last weekend, and they both said they wanted Boris to become leader.

On Tuesday, the Boris-Gove team prepared a website and the campaign office. On Wednesday, at a campaign meeting, Gove referred to an email Vine, a Daily Mail columnist, sent him the previous day, demanding assurances from Boris.

Vine maintains she accidentally sent the email to the wrong recipient, but Boris’s camp claim she leaked it, to undermine Boris’s chances. Vine also allegedly tipped off the BBC that Leave campaigners were meeting at Boris’s Oxfordshire home last Sunday.

“Gove said, ‘Sarah’s sent an email to the wrong person’, and he effectively laughed it off,” said the Team Boris member. “Someone said, ‘I hope she won’t write anything else.’ And Gove said, ‘Of course she will — that’s her job.’ He should have said, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll sort it out.’ Of course, the email was leaked on purpose.”

“Of course it wasn’t leaked,” says the member of Gove’s inner circle. “Why on earth would she want to name Paul Dacre in the email — her boss at the Mail?”

Leaking was a problem with Gove, too, according to Ben Wallace MP, Boris’s campaign manager, who said today: “Michael seems to have an emotional need to gossip, particularly when drink is taken, as it all too often seemed to be.”

At that Wednesday morning meeting, campaign roles were apportioned. Gove became campaign chairman. Nick Boles, an MP and Gove’s former flatmate, ran the MPs’ nomination process. Dominic Raab MP managed Brexit strategy. Beth Armstrong, a Gove adviser, controlled the master list of Tory MPs who might back Johnson in the ballot.

“That list is the Holy Grail,” said a senior member of Boris’s campaign team. “They had taken away the ability from Boris to operate without Gove’s people. He couldn’t print out the list — only Beth could. You could do screengrabs from the computer screen but the database was controlled by Beth. When Gove jumped ship, how could we crisis-manage 325 Tory MPs with only a few hours left?”

On Wednesday, at 5.25pm, Andrea Leadsom agreed with Johnson to become one of his top three ministers, provided he confirmed it in a tweet and letter by 8pm.

When Gove later asked Boris whether he had given the letter to her, Boris discovered he’d left it in his office. It was picked up and delivered to Nick Boles at the Tory Summer Ball at the Hurlingham Club. Boles went in search of Leadsom, to discover she had cancelled.

At 8.10pm, Johnson texted Gove: “Andrea wants me to tweet something like ‘Looking forward to campaign launch tomorrow with top team Michael Gove and Andrea Leadsom.’ Is that OK?”

Gove did not reply; in any case, Boris had missed Leadsom’s deadline.

At 9.30pm, Leadsom texted Boris: “No tweet, no letter. Clearly you don’t want to go ahead on the basis we agreed. I’ve submitted my nomination papers.”

The text was read on Boris’s phone by Nick Boles, coming back from the Hurlingham Club with Boris.

“Oh f***, f***, f***, what are we going to do?” said Boris. Boles texted Gove, saying, “Something’s gone wrong.”

Gove and his team were incensed that Boris had barely started on his leadership speech. Boris was still writing it in the car alongside Boles, and continued writing it when he got back to his Islington home.

“The thing is, Boris isn’t that trustworthy,” says the member of Gove’s inner circle. “It was clear he wasn’t going to stick together with us. He didn’t tweet, he didn’t bring the letter. Andrea broke ranks first — and that’s what triggered Michael to run.

“Boris was in nervous breakdown mode. His team were trying to do the speech with him. But he’d left the house with no speech. If you’re Prime Minister, you have to do the work. The buck stops with you. You can’t be so weak. Michael thought we cannot be this shambolic about everything. Nick Boles thought the same.

“During the referendum campaign, Michael had his doubts about Boris’s abilities. But they’d boxed and coxed quite well. People had suggested to Michael that he should run, but he was firm that it should just be Boris. Michael thought he could run things behind the scenes, while Boris did the glad-handing and all the public things he’s good at.

“But Boris couldn’t follow through. Everything was falling apart — it was a real shame.”

Late on Wednesday night, Nick Boles received a text from a Gove special adviser, asking him to Gove’s house in north Kensington. At 12.30am, Boles got an Uber, leaving Boris with 500 words of his 1,500 word speech written. At Gove’s home, he found three special advisers, Gove and Vine, who had been dining with Simone Finn, a Tory peer and ex-girlfriend of Gove.

“Michael came back from dinner and said, ‘I can’t in good conscience back Boris,’” said one of Gove’s inner circle, who was there that evening. “We said, ‘Let’s sleep on it.’ Michael made no final decision on standing until the next morning, when he called Boris. He couldn’t get through, so he called Lynton Crosby next.”

That was at 8.45am on Thursday.

“Lynton, I’m running,” Gove said.

“Running what?” said Crosby.

“I’m running for the leadership myself.”

“Crosby told us in short, Australian terms: ‘He’s done us over,’” a senior member of Boris’s campaign team said. “At 8.54 am we got an email from Nick Boles saying he couldn’t fill in the nomination papers, and he emailed the blank forms.

“Boles clearly never intended to get them completed. Gove knew this when, on Wednesday morning, he insisted Boles take charge of the nomination process.

“I’ve got no objection to Gove jumping ship. It was the manner in which he did it. It was designed to cause maximum problems. At every single step, they stitched Boris up. Gove wanted to maximise his chances and minimise Boris’s. Of course, Gove always wanted to be PM. Gove only believes in Gove.”

At 7am that morning, Gove’s campaign manager was asking MPs to come to Gove’s leadership launch. Still, at 7.08am, a Gove adviser emailed Johnson’s team, assuring them Gove’s supporters would be at Boris’s launch.

After talking to Gove, Crosby rang Johnson to tell him the news. “Well, that’s it,” Boris said, “I can’t go on. I can’t run.”

Crosby encouraged Boris to hold fire and come into the Westminster office.

At 9.02am, Gove released a statement, saying, “I have come, reluctantly, to the conclusion that Boris cannot provide the leadership or build the team for the task ahead.”

Soon after, Boris took soundings, before adjourning to a room with his wife, Marina, where he decided to stand down.

“He then gave a great speech and showed the bastards what they were missing,” says the senior member of Boris’s campaign team.

Boris spent the weekend visiting Cornwall, supporting long-standing commitments to visit Tory constituency associations — commitments that were made before his leadership bid. “Some of the constituencies have MPs that support Theresa May but he honoured his commitments,” said a source close to Boris, who is confident that he would fight for the leadership again one day.

Today, Boris’s Telegraph column is crammed with tips on how to run the country. He remains popular with Tory members and is still 13 years younger than Churchill when he became PM.

Caesar is not dead yet. There will be a second act.

Harry Mount is author of The Wit and Wisdom of Boris Johnson (Bloomsbury)