Prominent Conservatives have urged Boris Johnson to present the party with a “fundamental set of changes” to his operations after a senior cabinet minister quit the government in the latest blow to the prime minister’s wavering authority.
Brexit minister Lord David Frost resigned on Saturday evening, citing worries over the government’s “direction of travel”. He quit “with immediate effect” after expressing concerns about rising taxes and sweeping new coronavirus restrictions imposed by Johnson to combat the spread of the Omicron variant.
“This is the first major break from somebody senior”, said one minister. “But there are a whole heap of personal and policy concerns which everybody shares.
“He has to make a fundamental set of changes to how he operates, if not, we will have another six to 15 months of him tripping up [before he is replaced]. He has completely blown it with the right of the party and colleagues are emotional. He is pleasing nobody. He’s not for anything and that is going to be his downfall.”
No prominent Tories the FT spoke to on Sunday said a leadership challenge was imminent. However, Frost is a popular figure in the party and his concerns reflect growing disquiet on the Tory backbenches.
He has been vocal for the need to avoid what he described in his resignation letter as “coercive” lockdown measures and has opposed Johnson’s decision to increase taxes to their highest levels since the 1950s.
Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen warned that Johnson was “running out of time and out of friends”. Tobias Ellwood, Tory chair of the House of Commons defence select committee, called on Sunday for a “wartime leader”. He said: “We need a strong No 10, and the machinery of No 10 around Boris Johnson, that’s what needs to be improved.”
Frost’s resignation came just a day after a disastrous parliamentary by-election defeat in North Shropshire, where the Liberal Democrats overturned a 23,000 Tory majority.
Voters in the rural constituency went to the polls following weeks of allegations of Conservative sleaze and media reports of Downing Street parties held last year when such social gatherings were banned.
On Tuesday, Johnson suffered his largest Tory rebellion since entering No 10 in 2019 when about 100 Conservative MPs voted against Covid vaccine passports and accused the prime minister of presiding over a “lockdown by stealth”.
Party insiders believe the latest blow to Johnson’s leadership will lead to an increase in any potential leadership challengers setting out their stall. “There will be more positioning”, one said. “You will see a step up in the briefings, which are already pretty explicit”.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak had made it known that, alongside Frost, he voiced concerns at Wednesday’s cabinet meeting over the economic costs of further restrictions.
The cabinet minister’s departure from government during such an intense period of negotiations with Brussels is likely to increase Eurosceptic fears that the prime minister is capitulating on post-Brexit trade arrangements in Northern Ireland.
It is understood Johnson is no longer seeking the immediate axing of the European Court of Justice from its role in enforcing the Northern Ireland protocol. Frost has been a vocal critic of the ECJ.
In a reflection of the tensions within the Conservative party, culture secretary Nadine Dorries was removed from a Tory MPs’ WhatsApp group on Saturday evening after defending Johnson following news of Frost’s resignation.
Theresa Villiers, a former Northern Ireland secretary, described his departure as “very worrying”, while Bridgen said it was a “disaster”. “Lord Frost was concerned about the policy direction of the government. So are most of the Conservative backbenchers”, he said.
Dorries hit back that Johnson was a “hero” who delivered Brexit. The comment led to her removal from the group by arch Eurosceptic Steve Baker.