Boris Johnson ‘believes Theresa May will be gone in a year’
2 min read
Boris Johnson believes Theresa May will be gone within a year and is planning one last shot at becoming Tory leader, according to reports.
In a further sign of the the tensions at the top of the Tory party, an ally of the Foreign Secretary told The Sunday Times a coup to overthrow Mrs May could "take off fast".
The friend also said a number of Tory donors are moving their money offshore because Mrs May is “running the whole party into the ground”.
And the paper also claims that Mr Johnson joked that Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill - Mrs May’s former chiefs of staff who were forced to quit after the disastrous general election - held the Prime Minister in a state of “modern slavery”.
The report comes just a day after Mr Johnson issued a fresh challenge to Theresa May's authority by laying out his four 'red lines' for Brexit.
The Foreign Secretary said any transition period after leaving the EU should last "not a second more" than two years which is at odds which is at odds with the Prime Minister who said any such implementation phase should be “about two years” in her Florence speech last week.
Mr Johnson’s comments led a minister to call for Mrs May to sack him or stand down herself: “Either she sacks Boris or she goes. It’s that simple.”
According to the Sunday Times, some MPs believe Mr Johnson wants to be sacked because he has reportedly told friends he is running out of money as his cabinet minister’s salary — £141,505 — was not sufficient.
One who had been speaking to Mr Johnson said: “I detect a change of weather among MPs and donors. People who said to me in July that she must stay until 2019 are now saying: ‘I don’t think she’ll make it’ or ‘She shouldn’t make it.’
“A bunch of top donors are making preparations to move things offshore because they think May is running the whole party into the ground. If conference is a mess, it could all take off fast.”
One friend of the Foreign Secretary told a Channel documentary on Mr Johnson to be broadcast this evening: “He thinks she’s got a year at most."
Channel Four political editor Gary Gibbon said: “Those close to Johnson say he thinks he probably has one more go at the top job in him and then it’s really over.”
However one leading eurosceptic backbencher said:“We would like the conference to go well and the Government to pull together.”
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