Sir Iain Duncan Smith today told Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss to ‘temper your ambition’ as he warned against ousting Boris Johnson and triggering a damaging Tory leadership contest.
The former leader of the Conservative Party said it is up to Mr Johnson to restore public confidence in the Government in the wake of the Partygate scandal.
He said ‘ambition is a thing that exists in all of us, but it is ambition at the right time’ as he argued the ‘number one priority’ for the Tories should be tackling the cost of living crisis rather than descending into ‘internecine warfare’.
He also delivered a direct boost to the Prime Minister as he said he believes Mr Johnson is the right person to lead the Tories into the next general election.
Sir Iain’s comments came after Kwasi Kwarteng insisted Mr Johnson can stay in Downing Street for the long term and dismissed claims from Tory MPs that the PM’s exit from Number 10 is now ‘inevitable’.
The Business Secretary said that ‘lots and lots of people have said things are inevitable and they never happened over the last few years and I just want to wait and see’.
Meanwhile, Mr Kwarteng also sought to downplay claims of a rift between Mr Johnson and Mr Sunak as he said the Chancellor is ‘100 per cent behind the Prime Minister’.
Mr Johnson is said to have told aides that he is determined to cling onto power amid mounting fury over the Partygate scandal.
One senior adviser told The Sunday Times: ‘He’s making very clear that they’ll have to send a Panzer division to get him out of there.’
Sir Iain Duncan Smith today told Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss to ‘temper your ambition’ as he warned against ousting Boris Johnson and triggering a damaging Tory leadership contest
Cabinet colleagues have accused the Chancellor of ‘blatantly plotting’ to be the next Tory leader
More than a dozen Tories have now publicly called for Mr Johnson to go but it is unknown how many letters formally requesting a vote on the PM’s leadership have been submitted to 1922 Committee chairman Sir Graham Brady.
Many Tory MPs now believe it is ‘inevitable’ that the 54-letter threshold will be breached.
Should that happen and should Mr Johnson then lose the ensuing confidence vote, a leadership contest would be triggered. Mr Sunak and Ms Truss have been widely tipped as the favourites.
Cabinet colleagues have accused the Chancellor of ‘blatantly plotting’ to be the next Tory leader while there have also been reports of Ms Truss holding ‘fizz with Liz’ events to secure the backing of MPs ahead of a potential contest.
Sir Iain today cautioned his Tory colleagues against triggering a vote of no confidence which could lead to a bruising leadership battle.
Asked if he knew of groups of Conservative MPs actively working to oust Mr Johnson, the former Cabinet minister told the BBC: ‘You’ll forgive me because for the last week I have been locked down because of Covid so I haven’t really been in discussions with lots of colleagues.
‘But my instinct at the moment is that most colleagues still take the view that we have got to sort this out and sort it out in structural terms and get on and deliver.’
Asked if he was aware of any plotting by the likes of Mr Sunak or Ms Truss to take over from Mr Johnson, he replied: ‘I must say that the sooner we get this thing into order, structured and actually delivering with Downing Street really at the centre of things and driving Cabinet ministers to deliver, there are huge amounts of things that this Government after two years of being buffeted to be fair by the most desperate pandemic and the Prime Minister taking some pretty tough and some of them very big decisions which he has got right, but that notwithstanding we have got to get on and do it.
‘If, and I say only if because I am not close to it, if there are certain individuals who think that they have a right now to make a claim on that title of prime minister, well, fine, ambition is a thing that exists in all of us, but it is ambition at the right time.
‘I would say to people: Temper your ambition. The most important ambition for us right now is the ambition of the British people to come out from Covid, to avoid the most terrible economic crisis that is hitting them, for us to be able to deal with the poorest in society who will face that the worst.
‘That means things like seriously entertaining lifting VAT for the moment.’
There have also been reports of Ms Truss holding ‘fizz with Liz’ events to secure the backing of MPs ahead of a potential contest
Asked if he believes Mr Johnson is the right person to lead the Conservative Party into the next general election, he said: ‘Well I do at the moment. That is why I said that as far as I am concerned the Prime Minister is the one that has to sort this out.’
Sir Iain said Mr Johnson ‘has to be’ the person who rebuilds trust in the Government ‘because he is the Prime Minister’.
He said Tory MPs should not ‘plunge ourselves into a leadership election’ which will result in ‘internecine warfare’.
He said the Government’s ‘number one priority’ must be tackling the cost of living crisis.
Pressure continues to mount on Mr Johnson, with 15 Conservative MPs having publicly called for him to go.
Not all of them have confirmed sending letters of no confidence to Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of the 1922 Committee, but Downing Street is said to believe at least 35 have now gone in and they fear the number could be as high as 45.
That would put the Conservative Party less than ten letters short of the 54 needed to trigger a vote on the PM’s leadership.
Senior Tory MP Sir Charles Walker told The Observer he believes the PM’s exit from Number 10 is now ‘inevitable’ and urged him to go of his own accord.
He said: ‘It is an inevitable tragedy. He is a student of Greek and Roman tragedy. It is going to end in him going, so I just want him to have some agency in that.’
But one source close to Mr Johnson told The Sunday Express that the PM is ‘in a bullish mood’ and has set out a plan to backbenchers to stabilise his premiership.
Mr Johnson is said to have promised a major overhaul of Number 10 and to ditch ‘Lefty policies’ in order to ‘warm the cockles of Tory hearts’.
The shake-up of Downing Street is already well-underway after Mr Johnson appointed Minister for the Cabinet Office Steve Barclay as his new chief of staff following an exodus of aides last week.
Number 10 is braced for more resignations, potentially even from ministers, with Penny Mordaunt the latest to be put on ‘resignation watch’.
One minister told The Mail on Sunday that allies of Mr Johnson are increasingly worried the trade minister could quit over Partygate.
However, a source close to the former defence secretary dismissed the suggestion, saying that ‘she is doing her job and calling for calm heads’.
Mr Johnson last night announced Mr Barclay’s appointment, as well as the appointment of a new director of communications, former journalist Guto Harri.
Number 10 is braced for more resignations, potentially even from ministers, with Penny Mordaunt the latest to be put on ‘resignation watch’
The PM was rocked by the resignation of five senior aides on Thursday and Friday as more MPs sent letters in calling for a vote of no confidence in their leader.
The most painful departure was that of Munira Mirza, who had worked for Mr Johnson for more than a decade.
The policy chief quit on Thursday with a damning letter criticising Mr Johnson for his use of a ‘scurrilous’ smear against Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, over the failure to prosecute Jimmy Savile.
Resignations followed from director of communications Jack Doyle, chief of staff Dan Rosenfield, principal private secretary Martin Reynolds, and special adviser in the policy unit Elena Narozanski.
The Sunday Times also reported that special adviser Henry Newman, a friend of the PM’s wife Carrie, would leave No 10 and would likely return to work with his old boss Michael Gove.
Mr Kwarteng was grilled about Sir Charles’ ‘inevitable’ comment during an interview this morning on Sky News as it was suggested to the Cabinet minister that the ‘game is up’ for Mr Johnson.
But the Business Secretary said: ‘I don’t know where Charles Walker is coming from. I don’t see what he is seeing.
‘I think he is a good vice chair of the 1922. He is entitled to his view as I am entitled to mine.
‘I have to say, you know this, lots and lots of people have said things are inevitable and they never happened over the last few years and I just want to wait and see.
‘I am very focused on delivering the agenda, as is the Prime Minister, I spoke to him earlier in the weekend, and we are very focused on making sure that we have a strong economic recovery, that we have dealt with the Omicron virus and also with the Covid pandemic, that we are creating jobs, bringing in investment into the UK. Those are the things we are focused on as well as dealing with international challenges as we are seeing in Ukraine and with Russia.’
Meanwhile, Mr Kwarteng insisted Mr Sunak is still backing Mr Johnson.
Told that the Chancellor has appeared to have been ‘distancing himself’ from the PM, Mr Kwarteng said: ‘I was with Rishi Sunak in the House of Commons for nearly an hour and a half last week and he unveiled a really good set of measures to help people… why I am mentioning that is that we are working together, we are 100 per cent behind the Prime Minister and we want to deliver on the mandate that we were elected on successfully in 2019.’
