by Conservative MPs have expressed their dismay at claims that Rishi Sunak had secret talks with Dominic Cummings about the former senior adviser to Boris Johnson returning to government.
Mr Cummings claimed Mr Sunak had sought a “secret deal” with him in an attempt to “win” Labor and win the looming general election.
The price for his return to the hole was that the prime minister would have to enact radical reforms – a move which Mr Sunak ultimately rejected, according to The Sunday Times.
Tory MPs shared their alarm after No 10 denied that Mr Sunak had twice met Mr Cummings to discuss political strategy last year.
One senior Tory, a former cabinet minister who was sympathetic to Mr Sunak, said The Independent: “It’s a shame and shows bad judgement.”
Another senior Conservative said: “Whoever advised him [meet Mr Cummings for advice] should be sacked immediately. Cummings must be handled with asbestos gloves.”
A third senior Tory MP, as well as Mr Sunak, warned the prime minister: “Never bring arson into your home. They’ll burn it down, and they’ll nail it to you.”
Staunch Johnson loyalist Nadine Dorries said Mr Sunak had “repeatedly, on the record, refused to contact Cummings, making him a liar on record”.
It came as a video resurfaced showing Mr Sunak claiming during the 2022 Tory leadership contest that Mr Cummings would have “nothing to do with any government that I have the privilege of leading”.
Labor and the Liberal Democrats branded Mr Sunak “weak and desperate” for “secretly asking” Mr Cummings to return to No. 10.
However, the Tory leader has apparently decided not to bring Mr Cummings back, after the meetings saw the strategist make a series of claims about the government’s priorities.
Mr Cummings urged Mr Sunak to abandon his cautious approach, hold an emergency Budget, fix NHS strikes, and double the threshold at which people pay the 40p rate of income tax from £50,000 to £100,000, The Sunday Times reported.
The former adviser also suggested leaving the European Convention on Human Rights as part of a plan to renew Rwanda’s deportation scheme.
Downing Street did not deny Mr Cummings’ account of secret meetings in July and December 2022 – but insisted no job offer was made. Source No. 10: “It was a broad discussion about politics and the campaign; no job was offered.”
According to the report, based on Mr Cummings’ account, Mr Sunak told the strategist: “The MPs and the media will go crazy. Your participation must be confidential.”
But Mr Cummings said he was “only prepared to build a political machine to take down Labour” if the prime minister promised to take action on issues “we started to solve in 2020 but Boris abandoned”.
On Mr Sunak’s rejection of his advice, Mr Cummings said: “The Tories post-2016 are being summed up by the fact that Sunak, like Johnson, would rather lose government than actually take government . Both thought their MPs agreed with them, and both were right.”
The Liberal Democrats have called for an official Cabinet Office inquiry into whether Mr Sunak breached the ministerial code by failing to confirm any meetings he may have had with Mr Cummings.
The party cited Mr Sunak’s transparency returns – which do not refer to the meetings – and insisted an inquiry be made into whether the talks were reported to the Cabinet Office, as required by the code.
The Democrats’ chief minister, Wendy Chamberlain, said there needed to be “a proper investigation into any shady attempts to bring Cummings back through the back door”, adding: “We urgently need to know why these meetings were announced in the right way.”
A government spokesman said: “In full accordance with the ministerial code, meetings with private individuals to discuss political matters do not need to be announced.”
The shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy, questioned Mr Sunak’s judgment regarding the “secret meetings” with “this man of grain who has brought so much chaos to our country”.
The frontbencher said on his LBC radio show: “You’d think he would have learned something from his poor judgment of Suella Braverman.”
Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow master-general, said: “From Cameron to Cummings, the prime minister is admitting that he is out of ideas and too weak to come up with his own.”
A Lib Dem spokesman said: “This is a desperate move from a desperate prime minister.”
Mr Cummings, who helped lead the Vote Leave campaign, is widely credited with helping Mr Johnson win the 2019 election. But he left the following year after a great falling out with the Prime Minister at the time.
He later admitted that he was working to end Mr Johnson’s tenure. He also became involved in public scandal when it emerged that he had driven from London to County Durham when the lock was locked.
