The row over Boris Johnson’s allegation that Rishi Sunak “stabbed him in the back” to become prime minister has been reignited by a new book that says Mr Sunak did plot against him.
Political biographer Sir Anthony Seldon says aides of Mr Sunak, then chancellor in Mr Johnson’s government, “worked forensically with Sunak’s tacit support to undermine Johnson.”
His book, Sunak at 10 - the Last Conservative PM?, which is being serialised in The Independent, says that Mr Sunak “together with his lieutenants did play a significant… role in bringing down Johnson.”
Mr Sunak’s resignation as chancellor in July 2022 over a number of scandals engulfing the Tories and Mr Johnson personally, came just two days before Mr Johnson was forced to step down as prime minister.
Sunak was beaten by Mr Johnson’s ally Liz Truss in the Tory leadership contest that followed but became prime minister in October 2022 when she was forced out after triggering an economic crisis.
Mr Johnson and his supporters “despised” Mr Sunak and have long claimed that Mr Johnson was the victim of a “stab in the back” by Mr Sunak, according to Seldon’s book.
Seldon maintains that despite Mr Sunak’s denials, there is some truth in it, though he says Mr Sunak’s role in Mr Johnson’s downfall was “not ultimately decisive”.
The main reason was Mr Johnson’s own “incompetence and unsuitability as prime minister”.
Mr Johnson was so angry with Mr Sunak for resigning that he reportedly considered sending him a foul-mouthed video message.
It has been reported previously that Mr Johnson’s former Downing Street director of communications Guto Harri said Mr Johnson believed Mr Sunak’s decision to step down as chancellor was “the great betrayal of all time”.
Mr Johnson had thought about sending Sunak a video calling him a “c***”, said Mr Harri.
Mr Johnson later complained publicly that Sunak was “a close colleague and friend who turned on me at a particularly critical time”.
Seldon says: “Sunak was of course responsible for generating part of the hostility from Johnson and his supporters in the party and press. Together with his lieutenants he did play a significant, if not ultimately decisive, role in bringing down Johnson.
“The ‘stab in the back’ thesis was believed widely (by Johnson and his team) despite it being contested.
”Sunak’s aides worked forensically with Sunak’s tacit support to undermine Johnson, whose continuation in office they thought was imperilling the country.
“But the reason he fell was because of his own incompetence and unsuitability as PM.”
Much of the “toxicity and vitriol” directed at Mr Sunak by Mr Johnson and his allies stemmed from their belief that the vast sums of aid spent by Mr Sunak as chancellor during the Covid pandemic was ‘designed to upstage the prime minister ahead of a leadership contest,’ writes Seldon.
“Whether his critics genuinely believed it, or whether it was just a convenient excuse for a man they despised, the “stab in the back” thesis stunted any thorough separation with the Conservative party’s demonic history in the eyes of voters and many Tory MPs.”
Seldon says relations between Sunak and Johnson were so bad that Sunak considered resigning as Chancellor three times before finally doing so.
In the end, Sunak’s wife Akshata Murty joined those urging him to abandon Johnson because of the way she felt he had mistreated her husband. Seldon writes: “Akshata’s view was pivotal. ‘Come on Rishi, when are you going to do it?’ She felt he had been pushed around by Johnson for too long.”
Extracted from ‘Sunak at 10: The Last Conservative Prime Minister?’ by Anthony Seldon and Tom Egerton, Atlantic Books. On sale 27 August, hardback, £25
