Boris Johnson’s most senior adviser suggests MPs will not find a way of forcing out PM to stop no-deal Brexit

Boris Johnson’s most senior adviser, Dominic Cummings, has laid down a challenge to the Conservative rebel Dominic Grieve, suggesting that parliament would not find a way of forcing out the prime minister to stop a no-deal Brexit.

Grieve, a former attorney general, has said it would be unconstitutional for Johnson to defy any vote of no confidence and remain in Downing Street until after the Brexit deadline of 31 October.

Quick guide Who's who - Boris Johnson's controversial backroom team Show Hide Boris Johnson's new backroom team in Downing Street is littered with ex-staff from Vote Leave, supports of controversial lobbying groups like the TaxPayers’ Alliance, and those with links to Lynton Crosby and Mark Textor's C|T Group Dominic Cummings Special advisor to the prime minister Boris Johnson and chief of staff in all but name, Cummings was campaign director of Vote Leave. He had previously campaigned against Britain joining the Euro, and worked for Iain Duncan Smith as director of strategy at the Conservatives, and for Michael Gove as a special advisor in the department of education. Isaac Levido A Lynton Crosby protege, Australian Levido has been hired into Conservative party headquarters as director of politics and campaigning. He has previously worked in Washington for the Republicans, and contributed to the Tory campaigns in 2015 and 2017. Earlier this year he worked on the Liberal party’s surprise election success in Australia, where the party’s Facebook videos were watched at triple the rate of the Labor opposition videos during the election campaign. Lee Cain Head of communications for Johnson and responsible for determining the Conservative government’s message in public. He was the head of broadcast for the Vote Leave campaign and had government jobs, including at No 10, before joining Johnson at the Foreign Office. His most public role, though, was dressing up as a chicken in 2010 to heckle Tory politicians. Rob Oxley Press secretary at Downing Street, Oxley has previously served as an advisor to Home Secretary Priti Patel, and worked alongside Cain as press officer for the Vote Leave campaign. Oliver Lewis Now the Johnson government’s Brexit policy adviser, Lewis was Research Director at Vote Leave. Munira Mirza Heading up Johnson's policy unit, Mirza was his deputy mayor for arts in London for eight years. She has links to a circle of former Revolutionary Communist Party supporters who wrote for Living Marxism, before morphing into libertarian provocateurs involved with Spiked online magazine. She co-founded of the Manifesto Club, a pressure group challenging the “erosion of public freedoms”. Chloe Westley A digital adviser to the administration, Westley worked at both Vote Leave and the TaxPayers’ Alliance. She found fame on Twitter as @LowTaxChloe making videos attempting to mock attempting to mock Corbynite socialism. She was involved in Turning Point, a student pressure group dedicated to “free markets, limited government and personal responsibility” which drew attention when at one of its launch events American conservative Candace Owens appeared to praise HItler’s approach to making Germany great. Westley herself has praised the work of far-right, anti-Islam politician Anne Marie Waters. Ross Kempsell Former Guido Fawkes chief reporter and Talkradio political editor Kempsell has joined Johnson’s team as a special adviser focused on reform of Whitehall and the public sector just weeks after his interview with the prime minister during his leadership campaign prompted Johnson to rattle off an anecdote about making and painting cardboard buses as a hobby. He also was the interviewer when Johnson promised Brexit would be carried out “do or die” by 31 October. Danny Kruger Has moved from being the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport’s expert adviser on charities to the role of political secretary. He stood down as a Tory candidate in 2005 after causing controversy by saying he thought there should be a “period of creative destruction in the public services”. He argues that cannabis should be decriminalised. Blair Gibbs Previously a senior adviser to both Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, Gibbs is another former TaxPayers’ Alliance staffer entering No 10 as a policy expert. He is also in favour of decriminalisation, joining the administration from a policy role at the Centre for Medicinal Cannabis.

Cummings, the former campaign director of Vote Leave, is understood to have told government advisers last week that Johnson could stay on as prime minister even if rebel Tory MPs were able to form a “government of national unity” opposed to a no-deal Brexit.

The plan would be to form such an alternative government in the 14 days after the government lost a vote of no confidence. The Fixed-term Parliaments Act gives 14 days for such a government to be established before an automatic general election is called.

Profile Who is Dominic Cummings? Show Hide Dominic Cummings, the son of an oil rig project manager and a special needs teacher, was born in Durham in 1971. He attended a state primary school followed by the fee-paying Durham school and, in 1994, Oxford University, where he studied ancient and modern history. After three years living in Russia, where he attempted to set up an airline connecting Samara in the south with Vienna, the then 28-year-old became campaign director of Business for Sterling, which worked to prevent Britain from joining the euro. Although he has never, as far as anyone knows, been a member of a political party, Cummings was headhunted to be director of strategy for the then Conservative leader, Iain Duncan Smith, in 2002. While he was seen as a “young, thrusting moderniser”, Cummings quickly offended party traditionalists. He quit the job after only eight months, describing Duncan Smith as incompetent. Following the 2010 general election, the then education secretary, Michael Gove, appointed Cummings as his chief of staff. Many in Whitehall found Cummings as difficult as he found them. In 2013, civil servants in the Department for Education complained to the Independent of an “us-and-them, aggressive, intimidating culture” created by Cummings and Gove. He never hid his disdain for the workings of Whitehall and has derided Westminster figures in eye-catching media interviews and published rambling blogposts that are obsessed over by Westminster insiders. He described prime minister David Cameron as “a sphinx without a riddle”, and former Brexit minister David Davis as “thick as mince, lazy as a toad, and vain as Narcissus”. In 2015, Cummings and the political strategist Matthew Elliott founded Vote Leave, which was designated by the Electoral Commission as the official EU referendum leave campaign in April of the following year. Since the EU referendum, its tactics have been the subject of a series of high-profile scandals. Vote Leave’s use of data analytics has been scrutinised after the Observer reported that the data-mining company Cambridge Analytica had links to the Canadian digital firm AggregateIQ, on which Vote Leave spent 40% of its campaign budget.

In July 2018, the Electoral Commission announced Vote Leave had been found guilty of breaking electoral law by overspending, following testimony from whistleblowers. The group was fined £61,000 and referred to the police.

Cummings has used his blog to furiously defend himself and the Vote Leave campaign. In March 2019, he was found in contempt of parliament for refusing to appear at a committee of MPs investigating fake news. Frances Perraudin

Cummings is said to have told advisers that Johnson would ignore the result of the confidence vote and call a “people v politicians” general election – to be held after Britain had left the EU.

Speaking to the Times, Grieve said the Queen would have a responsibility to act in those circumstances. “The Queen is not a decorative extra,” Grieve said.

“It’s true she has sought to keep herself well away from the cut and thrust of politics, but at the end of the day there are residual powers and responsibilities which lie with her. She might have to dispense with his services herself.”

Speaking as he left his home on Wednesday morning, Cummings hinted that the next few weeks would see which man was right about what would unfold.

“The most simple thing is the prime minister believes that politicians don’t get to choose which votes they respect, that’s the critical issue,” he told Sky News.

“I don’t think I am arrogant. I don’t know very much about very much. Mr Grieve … we’ll see what he’s right about.”

Experts have cautioned that the prime minister would still remain in control of the timetable even if the government lost a confidence vote. Catherine Haddon, a senior fellow at the Institute for Government thinktank, told the Times that nothing in the Fixed-term Parliaments Act required a prime minister to resign on losing a vote of no confidence.

“In terms of a strict reading of the legislation, Boris is not required to resign. It is completely silent on all of this,” she said. “The onus is on the incumbent prime minister – they get to choose whether they resign. If they do not it is hard for a new government to be formed without dragging the Queen into politics.”

Jonathan Sumption, a former supreme court judge, said Johnson would be entitled to stay on as prime minister even if he lost a confidence vote.

In those circumstances, the prime minister would have the power to set the date of the election for after 31 October, following the UK’s departure from the EU with or without a deal.

Speculation intensified that Johnson was preparing for a snap poll after it emerged he had brought in Isaac Levido, the righthand man of the Australian election guru Lynton Crosby, to a new campaigning role at Conservative party headquarters.