After bouncing from crisis to crisis over the past few months, the foreign secretary has gone from the cabinet

At noon on Monday, speculation started to swirl around Westminster that Boris Johnson was about to follow David Davis out of the door. The foreign secretary, Theresa May’s biggest cabinet beast, had gone missing in action.

Johnson had been expected to host a lunch at the western Balkans summit in central London, but had not shown up. “We’re still waiting for our host,” Germany’s Europe minister complained on Twitter. He also failed to appear at an emergency Cobra meeting on the Salisbury poisoning, just round the corner on Whitehall.

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The foreign secretary was eventually tracked down to his official residence at Carlton Gardens, where he was holed up in the flat with key advisors. His closest allies, in touch with those in the room, warned they “wouldn’t bet their mortgage” on him still being in post by the end of the day. “It’s looking ominous,” one added.

He had been, it transpired three hours later, drafting his resignation letter. “The government now has a song to sing,” the standard bearer of Brexit wrote. “The trouble is that I have practised the words over the weekend and find that they stick in the throat.”

Johnson’s career has seen its fair share of resignations. But reincarnations, too. Shortly after he pulled out of the Tory leadership contest in 2016, Michael Gove’s knife still buried deep in his back, a veteran MP confided: “I’ve spent my whole career writing off Boris Johnson. One thing I’ve learned is not to do that.”

Play Video 0:36 Boris Johnson leaves his home after resigning as foreign secretary – video

Exactly two weeks later, one of May’s first acts as the new prime minister, and probably her most surprising, was to give Johnson one of the biggest jobs in her cabinet, handing him the keys to the foreign office.

She had concluded, according to a Downing Street insider, that she would rather have him “inside the tent, pissing out” than the other round, causing trouble on the back benches. Shrugging, he added: “Or maybe he’ll be inside the tent, pissing in.”

That last throwaway remark now seems very prescient. Over the last few months, Johnson has bounced from crisis to crisis, with colleagues increasingly getting frustrated and fed-up as the prime minister appeared to let him get away with it.

He prompted a furious response from Tory MPs when reports emerged that he had said “fuck business” when asked by diplomats about fears over the government’s handling of Brexit. David Cameron’s former spin chief Craig Oliver suggested it was the equivalent of Labour saying “fuck the NHS”, or the SNP “fuck Scotland”.

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The disdain mounted when he chose to travel to Kabul on the day of the key vote on a Heathrow third runway, so he could avoid choosing between his cabinet job and his longstanding opposition to the project.

Days later, he received a chilly reception in cabinet with several of his colleagues suggesting he was given the cold shoulder as a result of his actions, which they felt were no longer just damaging “Brand Boris” but the Conservative party itself.

Since then Johnson has, according to his friends, acquired a “haunted” air, as the inevitability of the prime minister’s embrace of a softer Brexit became ever clearer. No 10 put him on “suicide watch”, concerned he was about to resign. On the eve of the Chequers summit, David Cameron was dispatched to persuade him not to quit.

When Johnson got wind of May’s new Brexit proposals ahead of the country house showdown, he gathered the other Leave-supporting cabinet ministers to the Foreign Office to discuss their concerns. A day later, they decided against producing an alternative set of proposals.

By the time the cabinet gathered at Chequers, the foreign secretary was determined to have his say, warning colleagues that May’s new Brexit proposals would leave Britain a “vassal state” and that they were a clear failure to “take back control”.

He felt that selling the Chequers deal he protested so vehemently against on Friday was indeed like polishing a turd. Will Walden

He memorably concluded that anybody defending the proposal would be “polishing a turd”, but by the evening Johnson had fallen into line, toasting the prime minister’s deal. One cabinet minister said: “He was actually very big about it and by dinner spoke passionately in favour of making it work.”

But friends said afterwards that he had felt “bounced” into agreeing to a deal that was a world away from the hard Brexit he campaigned for. “He thinks that what is on the table is so flawed, we might even be better off staying in the EU. It’s the worst of all worlds,” an ally said.

Pro-Brexit MPs were furious with both Johnson and Michael Gove, who was seen as instrumental in winning the Leave-supporting cabinet ministers round. “Boris’s stock has gone down,” one said. “A lot of MPs are unimpressed that he didn’t push her to the brink on this and threaten to go. It looks like he’s in it for himself.”



Yet right up until Sunday night, Johnson was still of the view that the “pragmatic, sensible” path would be to stay in the cabinet so he could challenge May’s softening of Brexit from a position of influence. More cynical colleagues pointed out that sticking around could also restore a bit of faith in his badly damaged image.

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But then he started hearing rumours that Davis was considering his position. “Boris’s problem is this,” said one friend after the news broke. “Does he now bow to pressure from angry backbenchers who are out for him because they feel he capitulated at Chequers, and resign on a point of principle? He feels very isolated.”

By Monday morning, feeling boxed in on all aides, Johnson finally made his mind up to go. He gathered his closest aides at his official flat to write his resignation letter. But after informing No 10 of his decision, they made the brutal move of announcing the news themselves.

Davis, whose departure had sealed his fate, at first appeared taken aback that Johnson had also decided to go, suggesting he himself had only walked because his objections to May’s plans were central to his job. “I don’t think it’s central to the foreign secretary. It’s a pity, but there we are.”

Q&A Boris Johnson timeline Show Hide February 2016

Johnson says in a long-awaited statement that 'after a huge amount of heartache' he will​ back the leave campaign. In January, David Cameron had announced ministers could campaign on either side, and despite being a backbencher, Johnson's view was seen as influential. May 2016 Johnson campaigns around the UK, posing with the now infamous bus saying leaving the EU would provide the NHS with an extra £350m a week – a claim later condemned as a misuse of statistics. 23 June 2016 UK voters take part in the referendum. In the early hours of the following day the results show 52% voted to leave the EU. At a victory press conference hours later Johnson looks shaken. 30 June 2016 After Cameron quits, Johnson announces he will contest the Conservative leadership, pitching himself as a unifier. In a surprise twist, Michael Gove says he will also stand, warning that Johnson cannot provide the leadership needed. This prompts Johnson to use the launch of his leadership bid to say he will no longer stand. 13 July 2016 Theresa May, who took over the leadership unopposed, appoints Johnson as foreign secretary. November 2017 Labour MPs call for Johnson to step down after he wrongly states that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who was jailed in Iran, was 'teaching people journalism' – something both her family and her employer said was untrue, and was used by Iranian officials to justify her detention. 6 July 2018 Johnson is among 29 ministers who discuss May’s plan for Brexit at Chequers. He agrees to her proposals, though it is later reported he had initial doubts. 9 July 2018 After vanishing for several hours, Johnson resigns.

So what next for Johnson? Will Walden, his former director of communications, believes he will continue to fight for Brexit. “His tenure as standard bearer of either the hardest possible Brexit or indeed a no-deal Brexit has just begun. Clearly he felt that selling the Chequers deal he protested so vehemently against on Friday was indeed like polishing a turd. So he decided not to polish.”

Others are less convinced that his decision to go came down to principles. “Boris hasn’t been able to look me in the eye for weeks and I’m not surprised,” says one former cabinet minister. “Did he believe in anything truly? They sold an impossible product to the British public and a strand of our party and now pay the price.”

His allies dismiss rumours that he is now taking soundings over a leadership bid, though refuse to rule out him ever having a crack at it if the ball came loose from the back of the scrum: “His ambitions won’t disappear that easily.”

Just three days after Johnson raised a glass to the prime minister’s new Brexit deal at Chequers, he was gone. But his career has risen phoenix-like from the ashes before, and there are many who still believe he has an electoral gold-dust the Tories can’t do without. “There will be another reincarnation,” predicts one MP. “I can’t see him going quietly onto the back benches.”