The delegation had slowly grown throughout Wednesday afternoon. Nadhim Zahawi, who had accepted the chancellorship less than 24 hours earlier, Home Secretary Priti Patel, Trade Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan, Cabinet Secretary Kit Malthouse, Welsh Secretary Simon Hart and Transport Secretary Grant Shapps they were all present at various points. Even Simon Clarke, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and one of Johnson’s staunchest supporters since the early days of his leadership campaign, joined in by phone. “Everybody in that room agreed it was game over,” said one attendee. “Every single person was there to say that.” Those still fighting for prime minister did so with varying degrees of conviction. James Dandridge, Johnson’s ministerial assistant, made polite conversation. Cabinet minister Nigel Adams and director of communications Guto Harry stormed out. The most fervent efforts to save Johnson’s premiership were made by Ben Elliott, the Tory chairman, and Andrew Griffiths, the No 10 head of the policy unit whose palatial Westminster mansion was used as Johnson’s campaign headquarters for just three years. earlier. The ministers were forced to wait. Even at this late hour, Johnson’s inner circle made last-minute efforts to convince them that he should remain in office. As nerves gave way to hunger – the only sustenance was a slow flow of tea and biscuits – some ministers were removed to separate rooms from Johnson’s remaining loyalists as they tried to convince them that the ship could be righted. It was Zahawi who tried hard to convince Johnson’s team that it was over. “The herd is sinking,” he told them. “Once the herd gets agitated, you just have to get out of the way.” Griffiths, whose dismissive approach angered several ministers during the tense evening, hit back. “What you have to understand,” he replied, “is that the herd will tire after a while and go back to eating grass.” There were disruptions before the group could see the prime minister. First, Johnson had to complete a bruising appearance in front of the liaison committee, made up of select committee chairs, which took a surreal turn as he was told of the growing number of ministers waiting for him in No 10. it was over, David Canzini , the deputy chief of staff, told insiders that his appearance was “as bad as it gets.” In farcical timing, Johnson then held regular briefings – by phone – with the Queen. Then the really difficult conversations began. First was a meeting with Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Tory Committee. He informed the Prime Minister – sitting passively next to his leader, Chris Heaton-Harris – that the party’s rules were likely to be changed to allow for a second vote of no confidence to the prime minister, which he would surely lose. Johnson was gracious in rejecting the plea outright. Somber faces in the cabinet on Tuesday morning Photo: Getty Images Only then, and only one by one, were the assembled cabinet ministers allowed to visit the prime minister to deliver their verdicts. By all accounts the prime minister remained good, but there was no sign that he was ready to accept any of the arguments presented to him. To some, he protested that it was unfair that he was being asked to give up the job he had coveted for so long. In others, he argued that he had a mandate not through Tory MPs, but the 14 million voters who supported him. He said he “owed it” to them to fight. Some said he seemed oddly upbeat and had “plenty more juice in the tank.” It made it harder and harder – but some found it annoying. “It’s weird that he’s gone slightly Trump,” said one. “It’s all – “I don’t leave, I don’t see ships, everything is fine. One more push and we’ll do it right. None of this is my fault. I’ve been stitched up – if only the party knew how good I was.’ It is strange.” In fact, by late Wednesday afternoon, figures across Westminster and Whitehall were beginning to worry about how far Johnson would go in refusing to step down. The levels of denial inside the bunker had become too much for a cabinet minister. “They’re all crazy,” he despaired to a friend. “They’re all crazy.” By the time Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis had flown in and driven to Downing Street to deliver his verdict on Johnson, resignations from party and government posts were fast approaching half a century. There was now real doubt that the positions could be filled. Even parliamentary sources worried that events had taken a Trumpian turn. American-style demonstrations were feared if Johnson refused to go. “Mob rule is our big fear now,” a Commons source said, warning that a prolonged refusal to step down could lead to divisive protests outside parliament. They were desperate to avoid “a Capitol Hill.” Ironically for a prime minister who has set himself up against the conventions and rules of the Whitehall establishment, it was the quiet but devastating intervention of an official that had set the dominoes falling on Tuesday. Former Health Secretary Sajid Javid delivers his damning personal statement to the House on Wednesday Photo: Jessica Taylor/AP Sir Simon Macdonald, a former senior civil servant at the Foreign Office, said that, despite repeated claims, Johnson was aware of previous allegations involving Chris Pincher, the deputy chief who was suspended for allegedly groping two men. Strange as it may seem now, there were times when Downing Street aides thought they could arrest the landslide caused by this intervention. A grave alarm was raised when aides saw images of the cabinet meeting on Tuesday morning. In more comical timing, TV cameras had been allowed to film it, with the ministers looking visibly sullen and uncomfortable. A devastating briefing with political journalists followed, in which Downing Street struggled to deal with questions about exactly what the prime minister knew about the allegations against Pincher. The decision was made to get Johnson on camera as soon as possible, apologize for his handling of the case and “eat a little” to avoid resignations. As members of Johnson’s team began watching footage of his apology on camera, they thought they might have acted quickly enough to capture any further damage. Then the news dropped – Sajid Javid, the health secretary, had resigned, warning that the British people “rightly expect integrity from their government”. Minutes later, Chancellor Rishi Sunak followed with a similar warning that the public “expects the government to behave properly, competently and seriously”. It looked like a concerted move by the cabinet, but as they waited for more cabinet names to follow, none came. A strange confidence developed in the Prime Minister’s inner circle that they could overcome it. The decision was made to replace the two leaving the cabinet. One of the experts said: “There was a sense of, ‘screw it.’ Not many have followed them. We have arguably better appointments politically for what we need right now. We live to fight another day.” Jacob Rees-Mogg took to the airwaves to compare the threat to Johnson to that faced by Harold Macmillan in 1958, when the entire Treasury team resigned – a development Macmillan described as “a bit of local difficulty”. In fact, even as several ministers began to make it clear that they were not resigning, MPs had begun to resign from their posts as delegates, ministers and party vice-presidents. One of the most notable early exits was that of ‘Red Wall’ MP Jonathan Gullis. Resignations began to accelerate throughout Wednesday morning. Upgrade secretary Michael Gove also made the first big move by telling Johnson to go with dignity – an intervention that saw him end the crisis as the only person to be sacked by Johnson. His ouster sparked instant outrage in the government, including No 10. A junior minister, Jo Churchill, published her letter during a humiliating Prime Minister’s Question, in which Labor leader Keir Starmer described the government’s collapse as “the first recorded case of a sinking ship running away from the rat”. Boris Johnson delivers his provocative resignation speech on Thursday Picture: Henry Nicholls/Reuters Tory MP Gary Sambrook stole the show, drawing applause from opposition parties when he concluded that Johnson “is always trying to blame other people for mistakes and he has no choice but to take responsibility and resign ». This was just the beginning of the humiliation Johnson was to endure. Javid’s resignation speech followed, in which Johnson tried and failed to stop shaking his head in frustration. By the time Javid finished, Johnson’s left heel was repeatedly hitting the floor of the Commons chamber. Things took their strangest turn during Johnson’s liaison committee hearing a few hours later. Huw Merriman, one of the MPs to be interviewed by Johnson, posted his letter on Twitter calling for the prime minister’s resignation while sitting just meters away. The mystery to many cabinet members who saw a still defiant Johnson that Wednesday afternoon is exactly what made him change his mind and walk away from the Trump moment. Figures close to him suggest some time to think in his private apartment, combined with the “cold daylight”, meant that by the early hours of Thursday he had faced reality. He began working on a letter of resignation and Nigel Adams was instructed to get Graham Brady back on the phone. When the pair spoke again at 8.30am, Johnson – calm once again – said he would agree to go…
