‘It’s both me or Dom’: Sajid Javid reveals bust-up with Boris over Cummings | EUROtoday

Sajid Javid has for the primary time revealed the total particulars of his extraordinary row with Boris Johnson and ex-No 10 adviser Dominic Cummings which noticed him ousted as chancellor.

The senior Tory lifted the lid on his bust-up with the then-prime minister in February 2020, when Mr Johnson demanded the chancellor sack all his Treasury advisers to remain within the job.

Knowing Mr Johnson’s prime adviser was the one pushing for senior Treasury employees to be sacked, the chancellor instructed the PM at a showdown assembly: “It’s either me or Cummings.”

The PM selected Mr Cummings. Before storming out, Mr Javid instructed Mr Johnson: “That guy – he’s not going to be content until he burns the house down. He’s running rings around you.”

The former chancellor shared the total particulars of the ruckus within the Crisis What Crisis? podcast with the Tory occasion’s former communications boss Andy Coulson.

Mr Javid mentioned infighting had left the Conservatives in a “very depressing” state. He additionally revealed the horrible scale of the racism he suffered rising up within the Seventies – which noticed him attacked by skinheads and his mother and father’ store vandalised.

The former cupboard minister – residence secretary beneath Theresa May earlier than turning into chancellor beneath Mr Johnson – steered then-PM was “taking his instructions” from Mr Cummings when demanding he sack six Treasury particular advisers in February 2020.

“I reacted immediately, I said, ‘I can’t do that, I’m not doing that… These are like some of our best people, you just want me to fire them?’,” Mr Javid mentioned.

“And then [Mr Johnson] said, “Saj, they’re only people. Don’t worry about it.”

Bizarrely, Mr Javid was then given quarter-hour to vary his thoughts as Mr Johnson marched out of the room. The former chancellor mentioned No 10 officers got here in to inform him: “This is all Cummings. Just do what he’s saying because Cummings will be gone soon anyway.”

But Mr Javid mentioned he “just couldn’t do it” regardless of being “begged” by Mr Johnson to vary his thoughts, resulting in his half-hearted demand for Mr Cummings’ exit and resignation the identical day.

The former chancellor later patched issues up with Mr Johnson – after the Tory chief had fallen out with Mr Cummings – and re-joined authorities as well being secretary after Matt Hancocks’s exit in the summertime of 2021.

He went on to play a key position within the PM’s downfall when he resigned on the identical morning as Rishi Sunak. Though Mr Javid, who stood for the Tory management, insists his exit was not co-ordinated with the person who would ultimately turn out to be PM.

The former banker mentioned Mr Johnson’s authorities was a “massive” missed alternative, given the massive majority received in 2019, and blamed the previous PM for “listening to the wrong people”.

On the occasion’s present polling woes and inner squabbles on Rwanda and different main insurance policies, Mr Javid mentioned: “I find the whole situation very depressing really”, earlier than providing a grim warning for the 2024 basic election.”

“We’re not helping ourselves with all this infighting, and the one thing I certainly learned during my 13, 14 years in parliament is that the public won’t elect a disunited party,” added the senior MP – who’s standing down subsequent 12 months.

Mr Javid additionally mentioned the racism that blighted his upbringing in Bristol within the Seventies and Nineteen Eighties, revealing that he was usually abused and attacked by National Front skinheads on his strategy to faculty.

“I would have to avoid them because the times that I didn’t avoid them I would get punched in the face, punched in the stomach, called P*** and all sorts of other things,” he mentioned.

His mother and father’ store was usually daubed with racist graffiti. “We would wake up in the morning, go down to the shop and someone would have sprayed ‘P*** bastard’ or something along the windows of the shop.”

“And then my poor mother – my dad would be ranting and raving and be really upset – my mother would be the sort of practical one and actually get out detergent and other things and she would be scrubbing it.”

He added: “I think things have improved a lot in our country since then. It’s by no means sort of perfect when it comes to race relations, but it doesn’t feel like that era anymore.”

But Mr Javid steered that his background was partly the explanation senior folks at “tired old” British banks turned him down for jobs on the finish of Nineteen Eighties.

The senior Tory, who went to work for Chase Manhattan Bank, credited Margaret Thatcher with the so-called ‘Big Bang’ shake-up of the City which allowed US firms to play an even bigger position.

“For these businesses that you know, it was costly to be racist,” he mentioned. “What really made money was getting the best talent in, regardless of their colour or their background. The American banks were much more meritocratic.”