Boris Johnson’s precarious political position was exposed on Monday as the prime minister struggled over the course of two tense hours to unite his cabinet on how to respond to the Omicron public health emergency.
He is caught between a bloc of ministers resisting new Covid-19 restrictions for England and another faction — supported by his scientific advisers — urging decisive and speedy action.
Johnson’s dilemma is acute. Weakened by a series of political errors ranging from his handling of parliamentary sleaze to his response to media reports of Downing Street Christmas parties during lockdown last year, the prime minister’s authority is diminished.
As the Omicron variant of coronavirus surges through the UK, Johnson was left issuing a “wait and see” statement after his cabinet meeting.
Although he said the situation was “urgent”, there would be no immediate additional Covid restrictions. Instead, the government was reviewing relevant data on a “day by day” basis. “We rule nothing out,” added Johnson.
The stark position for Johnson is that any new Covid restrictions are opposed by a sizeable chunk of his cabinet and scores of Conservative MPs. Their introduction would leave him facing a fresh bout of party turmoil.
But moving too slowly to tackle the Omicron surge could leave the NHS struggling to cope, raising the prospect of the prime minister being blamed for chaos in England’s hospitals in the new year.
One influential Tory MP said: “If we break the NHS, we’ll never be forgiven and we’ll be out of power for a generation. Labour always argue we will break the health service. This would be evidence they were right.”
The expectation across Whitehall is that Johnson will introduce some new restrictions after Christmas to act as a “circuit breaker” on the spread of Omicron, but the cabinet is divided on the way forward.
Rishi Sunak, chancellor, leads a group of cabinet ministers — mainly on the right of the Conservative party, and also including foreign secretary Liz Truss — who want to see more compelling data before imposing new restrictions.
Downing Street said it was not aware of any cabinet member threatening to join Lord David Frost, the former Brexit minister, in resigning in protest at fresh measures, but tensions are near the surface.
Frost said following his departure at the weekend that he could not support Johnson’s “coercive policies on Covid”. Aside from the “freedom” arguments, Sunak accepts that if business premises are forced to shut, the Treasury would be obliged to fork out compensation that could run to billions of pounds.
Johnson’s weakened leadership — about 100 Conservative MPs last week voted against his latest round of Covid restrictions for England dubbed plan B — has compounded the cabinet tensions, according to Tory officials.
The release of a picture showing Johnson and his team drinking wine in the Downing Street garden in May last year, potentially in breach of lockdown rules, has added to pressure on the prime minister.
Johnson said the picture, first published by the Guardian, showed “people at work, talking about work”, and that there was no breach of the rules, but the prime minister is struggling to shake off several scandals.
Sunak and Truss are both potential Tory leadership contenders and are keen to demonstrate their resistance to Covid restrictions to the party’s influential libertarian wing.
In the other camp, urging decisive action, are Sajid Javid, health secretary, and Michael Gove, levelling up secretary, who back government scientific advisers and their argument that restrictions now will avoid a potential NHS crisis later.
Javid, a former chancellor, is suspected by some Tory MPs as having “gone native” at the health department. After taking over from Matt Hancock in June, Javid was widely seen as a lockdown-sceptic, but his views appear to have shifted.
The former Deutsche Bank executive wrote in the Daily Telegraph on Saturday: “The most important trading decisions I made in my past career were when the data was early and patchy, but a trend was emerging. Once that trend leads to a clear outcome, it may be too late to react to it.”
Javid’s supporters said he was positioned somewhere “between the public and the party” — a hint that Tory anti-lockdown sentiment is detached from mainstream public opinion.
Johnson is trying to navigate between the two camps, but officials briefed on Monday’s cabinet meeting said he sounded more resistant to new Covid measures than previously. One Tory official said: “It’s hard to say where the prime minister is on this. It depends what day it is.”
Conservative supporters of new restrictions admitted there was a theoretical danger of the government “over-mitigating” for Omicron, but one said: “That’s pretty unlikely in the current political climate.”
Another package of measures is being considered for next week — taking effect sometime after Christmas Day — to try to hold back what Javid calls an Omicron “tsunami”.
The holding statement by Johnson after his cabinet meeting will allow ministers more time to assess the data, said government insiders, while allowing families to continue with their Christmas planning.
But any move to new post-Christmas restrictions — including possibly curtailing household mixing and curbs to the way hospitality businesses operate — will incur a political and financial price.
Johnson has promised to recall parliament if he proposes new Covid regulations and that could happen shortly after Boxing Day. Another Conservative rebellion would be all but certain to follow.
‘Wait and see’ strategy on Omicron exposes Johnson’s weaknesses
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