In one of his first major Downing Street appointments, Boris Johnson has handed a key adviser role to controversial Vote Leave campaign chief Dominic Cummings.

He was brought onto the Johnson team last night and will play an integral part in the running of Johnson's Number 10.

Cummings is a Marmite figure: He has almost mythical status among former Vote Leave colleagues as one of the main reasons Brexit happened, but his critics see him as a divisive character, who was responsible for a dishonest campaign and found in contempt of Parliament for refusing to give evidence to a select committee.

You may know him best for being played by Benedict Cumberbatch in a Channel 4 drama about Brexit.

Cummings — who in a few months may have to convince Tory MPs to vote for a new Brexit deal — has famously aired some strong views about his Conservative colleagues, including those who voted Leave.

Here is Johnson’s new key adviser in his own words…

1. He called MPs in the European Research Group of Tory Brexiteers “pirates”.

Those of you in the narcissist-delusional subset of the ERG who have spent the last three years scrambling for the 810 Today slot while spouting gibberish about trade and the law across SW1 — i.e exactly the contemptible behaviour that led to your enforced marginalisation during the referendum and your attempt to destroy Vote Leave — you are also in the pirate category.

2. He said ERG MPs were “useful idiots” and that backbench grandee Bill Cash talks “bullshit”.

You were useful idiots for Remain during the campaign and with every piece of bullshit from Bill Cash et al you have helped only Remain for three years.

3. He said David Davis is “thick as mince” and “as lazy as a toad”.

[Davis is] manufactured exactly to specification as the perfect stooge for [Jeremy] Heywood: thick as mince, lazy as a toad and vain as Narcissus.



4. He accused Tory MP Bernard Jenkin of failing to read the backstop detail before backing it.

Remember how you WELCOMED the backstop as a ‘triumph’ in December 2017 when it was obvious to everybody who knew what was going on — NOT the Cabinet obviously — that this effectively ended the ‘negotiations’? Remember how Bernard Jenkin wrote on ConHome that he didn’t have to ‘ruin his weekend’ reading the document to know it was another success for the natural party of government ...

5. He claimed some Tory Brexiteers spent the referendum “chasing girls”.