Leading Brexiteers turned up the heat on Boris Johnson on Wednesday to push through sweeping changes to Government after his mini-reshuffle to prevent another “partygate” scandal.
Former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith called for “proper discipline at every level” and for more focus on delivering key Tory policies.
He branded the ministerial changes a “recycle” rather than a reshuffle given that senior ministers changed jobs, with no sackings to make way for new talent.
“What is required now is a radical shake-up and change in the nature of how the Government operates and what checks and balances there are against the bad behaviour that has brought the Government into disrepute,” he told the Standard.
“The key things now for the Government are proper structure, proper discipline at every level...and a focus on delivering things that resolve the problems for the public and delivering the benefits of Brexit.”
Mr Johnson promoted Chris Heaton-Harris to be Chief Whip, taking over from Mark Spencer who became Commons Leader, with Jacob Rees-Mogg moving from this post to be Brexit minister.
The Prime Minister, who will travel to Brussels on Thursday for talks with Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on the Ukraine crisis, has also overhauled his No10 senior team.
Steve Barclay MP has been appointed chief-of-staff, former BBC journalist Guto Harri director of communications, and Arundel MP Andrew Griffith replaced Munira Mirza as head of policy after she quit over Mr Johnson’s Savile “slur” on Sir Keir Starmer.
The changes were made as a number of Tory MPs wait for the completion of Scotland Yard’s investigation into 12 parties in No10 and Whitehall and the publication of the full report by senior civil servant Sue Gray into the scandal before deciding whether to put in letters of no confidence in Mr Johnson, or not.
The ministerial changes were seen at Westminster as the Prime Minister surrounding himself with more Brexit loyalists as he seeks to stay in office.
Mr Heaton-Harris told BBC’s Newsnight: “I would like to think we have a very strong Prime Minister who is going to continue and get stronger and stronger and lead us into the next election, which we will win comfortably.”
However, leading Brexiteer Philip Davies stressed: “There is much in politics at the moment which is uncertain – including the fate of the Prime Minister.”
Writing in his local paper, the Telegraph and Argus, the Shipley MP called for VAT on domestic fuel to be axed and a tax-cutting “Conservative approach” to the looming crisis.
Sir Bernard Jenkin, the Conservative chairman of the Commons liaison committee, emphasised: “We are interested not in the optics of some impression of a reset. We’re looking for a change in the capability and character of the government so we can have confidence that nothing as mortifying as the partygate episode can ever happen again.”
The clip of him demanding these changes was retweeted by former Brexit minister Steve Baker who has said he believes the Prime Minister is probably in a “checkmate” position.
The Prime Minister’s position, though, was further weakened when a major Tory donor suggested his premiership is past the point of no return.
Financier John Armitage, who has given more than £3 million to the Conservative Party and also donated to Labour, told the BBC: “If you lose moral authority... if you do something or say something, which on the front page of the Sunday Times looks terrible, and you do that consistently, and you betray a sense of not really caring, I think you should leave.”
Ahead of Prime Minister’s Questions, health minister Edward Argar said he did not expected Mr Johnson to apologies to Sir Keir for his unsubstantiated claim that the Labour leader had failed, as Director of Public Prosecutions, to prosecute Jimmy Savile.
Mr Johnson was also facing criticism for not promoting more women in his mini-reshuffle to senior posts, with the shake-up at Cabinet level involving mainly middle-aged white men.
A number of One Nation Tory MPs are also understood to be dismayed by the partygate scandal.
However, The Times reported allies of the PM saying he will seek to stay in No10 even if he is fined by Scotland Yard for breaching Covid rules.
