Boris Johnson should sack the “young and inexperienced” members of his cabinet in the wake of Dominic Cummings’ decision to resign from Downing Street, a senior Tory MP has said.
Bernard Jenkin, the veteran MP who chairs the Commons liaison committee, said the prime minister should reshuffle his top team to bring in “more experience”.
Cummings is expected to leave his role as Johnson’s chief adviser by the end of the year after No.10 became consumed by a bitter power struggle. It follows the departure of Downing Street communications director Lee Cain.
Both men were veterans of the Vote Leave campaign that won the Brexit referendum in 2016 and moved into No.10 after Johnson became prime minister.
Jenkin also worked on Vote Leave but is no fan of Cummings, and told BBC Radio 4′s Today programme on Friday his decision to quit was an “opportunity to reset how the government operates”.
“I would suggest there are three words that need to become the watch words in Downing Street – they are respect, integrity and trust,” he said.
“Certainly in the relationship between the Downing Street machine and the parliamentary party there’s been a very strong sense that has been lacking in recent months.
He added: “I’m not surprised in a way that it is ending in the way it is. No prime minister can afford a single adviser to become a running story, dominating his government’s communications and crowding out the proper messages the government wants to convey. Nobody is indispensable.”
But Jenkin said rather than Johnson having appointed too many pro-Brexit staff and ministers, the opposite was true.
“A lot of the people closely involved with Brexit, with Euroscepticism, were exiled from the government.
“And a lot of the people who voted Remain, and frankly some of them seemed like hangers on, were given very prominent jobs.”
“You need substantial people who have experience,” he said. “It’s been a very young and inexperienced cabinet. There is an opportunity in a reshuffle to bring in more experience.”
All four of the people holding the so-called great offices off state, Johnson, foreign secretary Dominic Raab, home secretary Priti Patel and chancellor Rishi Sunak voted Leave. And Michael Gove, who holds the powerful Cabinet Office job, was chairman of Vote Leave.
However there are several high profile ministers, including health secretary Matt Hancock, who backed Remain.