Former Boris Johnson aide Dominic Cummings plots new party to end ‘rotten Tory horror show’

Boris JohnsonThe former chief of staff is planning an initial political party to take on the conservatives in subsequent elections.

Dominic Cummings has said it’s “time to build a startup” to “replace the rotten Tories and win in 2028”.

Cummings, who was Johnson’s most senior adviser, said Rishi Sunak he is the hardest-working MP with the highest IQ, but “has no grip on power, no government plan, no message and no political strategy worth spitting on.”

“The old system isn’t getting any better than Sunak as PM, so what does that say about the system,” he wrote in a blog post.

And he said the Conservatives will not “improve after the election and understand why they failed so badly, why the majority of 80 seats in the voting authorization was wasted”.

The former adviser, forced out of Downing Street in November 2020, hit the headlines when he drove to the historic town of Barnard Castle during lockdown in April, a trip he claimed was to test his view before making the long journey to London.

Writing for his blog subscribers, Cummings said he is already getting messages from MPs and donors asking how to rebuild the party.

But he tells them “no, you’re going to plow the old Tory party into the ground”, and prefers messages that call for “the kick-off party”, he said.

“This is the time to start building the replacement so that from 22.00 on the election night of October-December 2024 the old Party will be buried and a new set of people with new ideas will start talking to the country and they can take over in 2028 and give the voters. the kind of government they want and deserve,” Cummings said.

His agenda is similar to the agenda he wanted to pursue in Downing Street with Mr. Johnson, being “tougher” on crime, security and immigration and withdrawing from the European Convention on Human Rights.

It would also freeze or cut taxes for workers, reduce the size of the state and close tax loopholes that benefit the wealthy.

Cummings also said he would tie MPs’ pay to median income, meaning if salaries fell, they would earn less.

The goal is to win in 2028, rule for two terms and then self-destruct as a legal entity, so the project is credibly set up to be fundamentally different from a normal party,” he wrote.

The former aide is talking to “a few people” about the plan and is thinking about it, he said. And an ally said “if anyone can do it, they can”.

But one conservative critic dismissed the plan, saying the times they were “yet more insane ramblings of a narcissistic egomaniac who is, thankfully, increasingly irrelevant.”