Sajid Javid has resigned as the Chancellor of the Exchequer following the Cabinet reshuffle by the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson. The ex-chancellor was widely expected to keep his job but in a twist event, he had to resign when the Prime Minister asked him to sack all his aides.
This unusual move was a calculated attempt by No. 10 Downing Street to control the Treasury.
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Rishi Sunak, who is effectively the deputy to the Chancellor of the Exchequer has been appointed to replace him. His appointment is a welcome development within No. 10 Downing Street due to Rishi’s popularity within the government’s circle.
Savid Javid who has been in the post since the inception of the Boris Johnson Premiership was reported to have repeatedly clashed with Johnson’s senior adviser, Dominic Cummings, over issues such as restraints on spending among others.
When asked by reporters outside of his home about the development, Sajid explained that he was asked to replace all of his political advisers and that he was unable to accept those conditions. “I do not believe any self-respecting minister would accept those conditions.”
When pressed whether the conditions were being imposed by Cummings, he replied that: “they were imposed by the prime minister”. He further added: “My successor has my full support as does the prime minister.”
Javid’s resignation letter to Johnson contained several parting shots at the No 10 operation led by Cummings. It included a plea for the Treasury to retain its credibility, and a warning that leaders needed to have “trusted teams that reflect the character and integrity that you would wish to be associated with”.
The letter, which Javid posted on Twitter, also stressed the importance of having people around a prime minister that can give “clear and candid advice”.
How did we get here?
There have been bad relations between No 10 and No 11 since Cummings fired Javid’s press secretary, Sonia Khan, in August without consulting him after alleging she was responsible for leaks, which she denied. She had refused to hand over her phone and security escorted her out of the building.
Since then, there have been rows between No 10 and Javid’s team over the Conservatives’ economic policy at the election and the contents of the budget. Javid had been pushing for tighter fiscal rules, while No 10 wanted fewer constraints on spending.
No 10 had always insisted that relations between Javid and Johnson were personally fine, with the prime minister attending the chancellor’s 50th birthday party along with his partner, Carrie Symonds, a former adviser to Javid.
However, tensions have been simmering for months at the adviser level, and the longstanding rows ultimately ended in No 10’s attempt to seize political control over the direction of the Treasury.
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In Defence of the Decision
Boris Johnson masterminded the changes on Savid Javid with no warning, leaving the chancellor and his staff shocked. He had proposed that Javid get rid of all his political staff and allow No. 10 to create a joint unit pooling special advisers with Johnson.
Downing Street sources suggested the “spad unit” was a way of minimising friction between Numbers 10 and 11 and avoiding the kind of tensions that hampered the Blair government.
“You either go the Blair and Brown way, or you do the George and Dave way,” said a source – referring to the close relationship between George Osborne and David Cameron, who shared an office in opposition, and took the same approach into government in 2010.
It is understood Javid was told most of his current team of advisers would not be considered for roles in the new team, because No 10 believed they had not served him well and had given him poor advice.
No 10 officials were particularly irritated by what they regarded as a ham-fisted briefing about the HS2 decision, that appeared to play up Javid’s role in approving the project and pre-empted an official announcement by the prime minister.
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The Opposition Not Amused
Labour’s John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, said Javid’s resignation showed that Cummings had “clearly won the battle to take absolute control of the Treasury and install his stooge as chancellor”.
“This must be a historical record, with the government in crisis after just over two months in power,” he said.
Other Political Causalities
The sacking of Julian Smith as Northern Ireland secretaries little over a month after he oversaw the restoration of its devolved assembly and amid a potentially perilous time for the region was shocking.
The nationalist SDLP said it showed “Johnson’s dangerous indifference to us”, while the Irish Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, called Smith “one of Britain’s finest politicians of our time”.
Other cabinet departures include Andrea Leadsom, the business secretary, the attorney general, Geoffrey Cox, and Theresa Villiers, the environment secretary.
Leadsom was replaced by the international development secretary, Alok Sharma, who was also made minister responsible for the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow in November. Anne-Marie Trevelyan, a defence minister, was promoted to development secretary in his place.
Oliver Dowden, the Cabinet Office minister, was sent to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to replace Nicky Morgan, who continued in the job temporarily as a peer after stepping down at the election.
Cox tweeted a letter to Johnson, praising his delivery of Brexit. Villiers posted a Facebook message confirming her departure, beginning: “What the prime minister giveth, the prime minister taketh away.”
One surprise was the sacking of Nusrat Ghani as a junior transport minister. Ghani had been tipped to become the new minister for HS2. She was one of two junior transport ministers sacked. “On my bike,” tweeted the other, George Freeman.
Esther McVey was also removed as housing minister and Chris Skidmore as universities minister, adding to the churn in two roles with a recent history of high ministerial turnover.
