Grim-faced Boris Johnson received killer email which blew up political career as he boarded jet
BORIS Johnson received the killer email which blew up his career as an MP as he jetted to Cairo at lunchtime on Thursday.
The former PM looked grim-faced after taking his seat in business class on flight BA384 to the Egyptian capital.
He has since told pals he has been the victim of a plot to reverse Brexit and insisted: “I am not going to give up.”
Mr Johnson was forced to quit after a senior Tory MP on the privileges committee investigating whether he lied to the Commons over Partygate put the boot in.
It was equally split over whether to give him his marching orders with a ten-day suspension until Sir Bernard Jenkin sided with Labour.
Sources said he broke ranks with fellow Tory MPs to join Labour’s Harriet Harman and cronies.
Boris was then notified of her decision in a hammer-blow email.
One insider said: “It was Bernard who plunged in the knife.”
An onlooker on the flight said: “Boris didn’t look happy.”
It comes on a weekend of Tory turmoil and blood-letting in which:
- FORMER Cabinet minister Nigel Adams became the third Tory MP to quit within 24 hours, sparking another nightmare by-election;
- JOHNSON allies accused Rishi Sunak of “assassinating” BoJo and tearing apart the Tory party;
- FEARS mounted that Tory big beast Alok Sharma could be poised to resign, and;
- TORY MPs warned Mr Johnson could “go nuclear” and set up a new political party.
Some MPs accused Mr Johnson, who resigned on Friday night, of trying to “blow up” the party in an act of revenge.
As civil war threatened, veteran Eurosceptic Sir Bill Cash joined the growing number of Tory MPs to announce they are stepping down at the next election.
An army of Labour activists and MPs, meanwhile, descended on Mr Johnson’s Uxbridge and South Ruislip constituency to campaign in the forthcoming by-election before it has even been triggered.
The decision by former Cabinet minister Mr Adams to quit, with immediate effect, as MP for Selby, North Yorks, means the Tories will have to fight another seat.
And it means PM Mr Sunak now faces three by-elections in England after Boris loyalist Nadine Dorries announced she was resigning as MP for Mid Bedfordshire.
Mr Sunak also faces a Scotland by-election, which is he expected to lose.
No10 is now on high alert in case Mr Sharma quits too after he went to ground amid the bitter turmoil when he did not appear on Mr Johnson’s resignation honours list.
One senior Tory said: “This is totally toxic for Rishi. He isn’t cut from the cloth of the party.
“He doesn’t care about the party. He is only out for himself.
“Many in the party thought Rishi was Boris’ chief assassin and they can see what is happening now.
“Rishi is 100 per cent responsible for all of this.”
The MP accused the PM of tearing up BoJo’s election-winning manifesto pledges and watering down Brexit.
They added: “Our very democracy is at risk.
“We are seeing the utter arrogance of a group of people who think they can just remove someone who was democratically elected.
“It is the establishment and the Blob coming together.”
Last night top Tories hailed Boris as a political titan and said he may return to frontline politics.
Jacob Rees-Mogg, another Boris loyalist, hailed his “extraordinary connection” with Brits.
He said that, by delivering Brexit, Mr Johnson has ushered in the “biggest political change this country has seen for 300 years”.
Former Home Secretary Priti Patel added: “He is the most influential politician in Britain since Margaret Thatcher.”
James Duddridge MP, a right-hand man for Boris in Parliament, said: “He has not left politics and will be back in the Commons. Why? It is in his blood . . .”
Mr Johnson made his decision to go some hours after reading privileges committee chairwoman Ms Harman’s email on Thursday.
She said the Partygate investigation found he had lied to Parliament and would recommend he was suspended for at least ten days.
The punishment would have meant Boris almost certainly facing a by-election.
Sir Bernard denies he broke with the committee’s Tory MPs to side with Labour and finish Boris off.
However, several sources pointed the finger of blame at him.
Instead of facing the ignominy of being forced out, Mr Johnson decided to seize the political initiative and quit instead.
Before doing so, he held a series of intense talks with allies on the phone during Thursday and on Friday.
Rishi and his No10 aides were not warned and only found out about his resignation, and broadside against the PM, on Twitter.
Mr Johnson arrived back in London from Cairo yesterday as the civil war sparked by his departure raged on.
He has told pals he thinks he has been stitched up and is the victim of an anti-Brexit plot.
He told one: “There is clearly a big operation to undo Brexit. It is so sad to see the opportunities of 2019 being steadily squandered.”
Dropping a heavy hint that he could one day return to frontline politics, Boris said: “I am certainly not going to give up.”
Some Tories fear Mr Johnson could try to set up his own party in a move which risks tearing apart the Conservative Party, the most successful election-winning machine in the world.
One Rishi loyalist said: “He could go nuclear and set up his own party. That would be wild, but he might.”
Throwing fuel on the fire, leading Tory party figure David Campbell Bannerman said he believed it could be a possibility.
He said yesterday: “We could be in a position of having to renew the Conservative Party from the ground up. The party is in a desperate state.”
He also said that party members must wrest control back from Downing Street.
Other senior Conservatives have accused Boris of being a “petulant child” who is trying to “blow up the Tory party” because he has been caught lying.
One said: “This is Boris being Boris and lobbing grenades on his way out.”
One minister and Rishi loyalist said: “I am sad to see Boris go. We were all fed up over Partygate and the allegations over Chris Pincher’s sexual misconduct, but he was popular. There is no one like him.
“If we were nearer to an election it would be World War Three but as we are not we might get away just with skirmishes.”
A former Cabinet minister said: “Everyone knows we will be toast if we get rid of another leader. We have to stick with Rishi and be loyal.”
Another senior Tory said: “Boris is trying to blow Rishi up on the way out the door but the person he has most blown up is himself. If he thought he had the votes and could win he would stay.”