Sacked defence secretary says reports he wanted to ‘invade Africa’ were leaked to discredit him

Gavin Williamson has accused No 10 of trying to smear him, following reports he wanted to “invade Africa” and had made derogatory comments about Theresa May’s diabetes.

In an escalation of the row between May and Williamson, who was sacked as defence secretary on Wednesday, he accused No 10 of being behind anonymous briefings and a leak of confidential information to discredit him.

Williamson was fired over allegations he leaked information from the National Security Council (NSC), which he has strongly denied, and called for a police investigation to clear his name.

He was himself the subject of a leak from the NSC on Sunday, after a document was passed to a newspaper suggesting he had wanted to send troops into at least five African countries, along with a briefing that he wanted to invade Africa.

It was also reported he was overheard saying May was unfit to hold office because of her diabetes.

Williamson dismissed the reports as smears. “I find it very disturbing that No 10 are leaking confidential information in order to try and smear me,” he said. “This goes to show that they had no evidence to justify the actions the prime minister took last week.”

No 10 sources denied that anyone from Downing Street was behind the briefings.

Q&A What is Huawei and why is its role in 5G so controversial? Show Hide Fast-growing Huawei is arguably China’s first global multinational. The Shenzhen-based company makes mobile phones, base stations and the intelligent routers that facilitate communications around the world. But its success increasingly concerns the US, which argues Huawei is ultimately beholden to the Chinese Communist party and has the capability to engage in covert surveillance where its equipment is used. Huawei is by some distance the world’s largest supplier of telecoms equipment with an estimated 28% market share in 2019. It was also the second largest phone maker in 2019, after Samsung and ahead of Apple. But Australia banned Huawei from 5G in 2018, with its spy agencies declaring they were worried the company could shut down power networks and other parts of its infrastructure in a diplomatic crisis. Trump banned US companies from working with Huawei last year and has strenuously lobbied others to follow suit, venting “apoplectic fury” in a phone call to Boris Johnson after the UK agreed to allow the Chinese company into 5G. The company had successfully targeted the UK early on. It has supplied BT since 2003 and gradually expanded to the point where it agreed to create a special unit in Banbury, known as the Cell, where the spy agency GCHQ could review and monitor its software code. Vodafone is another key customer. Britain’s intelligence agencies said in January that any Huawei risk could be managed as long as the company was not allowed to have a monopoly. As a result, Boris Johnson concluded Huawei’s market share should be capped at 35% for forthcoming high-speed 5G networks. In July 2020 the UK position changed, and it was announced that Huawei is to be stripped out of Britain’s 5G phone networks by 2027. Oliver Dowden, the UK culture secretary, also announced that no new Huawei 5G kit can be bought after 31 December 2020 – but said that older 2G, 3G and 4G kit can remain until it is no longer needed. Dan Sabbagh Defence and security editor Photograph: Mark Schiefelbein/AP

Williamson helped to put the prime minister in Downing Street by organising her campaign to be Conservative leader and he was later promoted from chief whip to defence secretary. But he was sacked by the prime minister because she believed he was responsible for telling the Telegraph that the government would allow the Chinese state company Huawei to be involved in the 5G communications network.

Writing in the Sunday Times, Rob Golledge, a former adviser to Williamson, described him as someone who “could be juvenile, he could be ridiculous, he could be horrid and at times he wore his ambitions too brazenly and revelled too much in the dark arts and his reputation for skulduggery.

“Despite the pithy name-calling, brutal caricatures and wild accusations levelled against him, there is a good person under Gavin’s Machiavellian facade. But if you live by the sword, you die by the sword. And he appreciates that more than most,” he said.

“An MoD official told me: ‘Gavin walked a high rope; when he fell he found there was no safety net.’ But I wonder if, in sacking him, the prime minister has really thought through the political consequences of scorning a man to whom she owes so much. Maybe May has just removed her own safety net.”

A number of Conservative MPs have rallied round Williamson since his sacking, saying May should only have acted on clear evidence.

Jacob Rees-Mogg, the leader of the European Research Group of MPs, asked whether Williamson was “stitched up for being right”, after the police said there were no grounds to investigate a breach of the Official Secrets Act.

Leaking or briefing? Inside the world of ministers’ secrets Read more

Michael Fabricant, the Conservative MP for Lichfield, said: “I do not know whether Gavin Williamson leaked any Huawei material or not, but accusations about his criticising the prime minister for her diabetes – which he denies and appears ridiculous – sounds like the No 10 spin machine in deep briefing overdrive.”

Williamson has vowed to clear his name over the NSC leak, claiming he was “royally screwed over”, but No 10 is refusing to release the report prepared by Sir Mark Sedwill, the cabinet secretary, into his conduct. The public evidence so far is that Williamson had an 11-minute conversation with the Telegraph journalist who wrote the story about Huawei before it appeared.

He told the Sunday Express he believed it was “a game of politics, settling scores and trying to prove the prime minister’s political strength”.

“This whole affair hasn’t been about trying to find the real culprit who leaked what was said at that meeting,” he said. “The PM has spoken about compelling evidence. Well, I’d like to see it.

“With the Metropolitan police not willing to do a criminal investigation, it is clear a proper, full and impartial investigation needs to be conducted on this shabby and discredited witch-hunt that has been so badly mishandled by both the prime minister and Mark Sedwill.”