UK PM’s adviser Cummings quits immediately amid Downing Street power struggle: Reports

London, November 14

Dominic Cummings, one of the vital influential and high-profile aides of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, has left Downing Street after an influence battle that has rocked the UK authorities, the media studies stated on Saturday.

Johnson’s senior advisor exited Number 10 carrying a big field on Friday night following a bitter dispute which additionally led to the resignation of Cummings’ fellow Vote Leave veteran Lee Cain as communications chief, Sky News reported.

The dramatic occasions come forward of essential Brexit talks with Brussels with the transition interval deadline of December 31 looming.

According to BBC, Cummings, 48, has left Downing Street after inner battles over his function as Johnson’s chief adviser.

He will proceed to make money working from home, on points comparable to mass coronavirus testing, till the center of December, the report stated.

The prime minister is alleged to wish to “clear the air and move on”, it stated.

Cummings was initially stated to be leaving by Christmas subsequent month.

As a part of Johnson’s high group, Cummings is broadly credited with serving to safe the UK Prime Minister’s thumping General Election victory in December 2019.

The largely behind-the-scenes influencer discovered himself within the limelight earlier this 12 months when he was accused of breaching lockdown guidelines by making a visit from London to the north-east of England, at a time when he feared he might have contracted coronavirus.

There have been resounding requires him to step down or be sacked however he as an alternative hosted a press convention to disclaim allegations of wrongdoing.

In a weblog publish in January, Cummings had hinted that he deliberate to go away his function by the top of the 12 months, saying he hoped to make himself “largely redundant” by then. However, in keeping with sources being quoted throughout the UK media, the exit of considered one of his personal shut allies in Downing Street – Cain because the No. 10 Director of Communications – had precipitated his exit plans.

Cummings and Cain each labored with Johnson as a part of the Vote Leave marketing campaign through the 2016 European Union (EU) referendum and are seen as instrumental to the Brexit end result.

They are broadly regarded to have since led a Vote Leave faction of colleagues in Number 10 and different components of presidency.

Cain, 29, had introduced he would step down as Johnson’s high media aide on Wednesday night time after ministers and advisers, together with Johnson’s fiancee Carrie Symonds, are stated to have protested over his deliberate promotion to Chief of Staff.

Symonds, a former head of communications for the ruling Conservative Party, is believed to be sad with the affect of a few of her husband-to-be’s closest aides. Johnson is trying to fill the publish of Chief of Staff as a part of a wider reorganisation on the very high of his authorities construction.

However, a number of members of Parliament from inside the Conservative Party have expressed dismay on the inner wrangling of No. 10 spilling out into the general public area.

It comes at a time of rising unease on the Tory benches on the authorities’s dealing with of the pandemic and the financial injury being brought on by the present lockdown in England.

But Johnson’s official spokesperson, James Slack, who will substitute Cain when he departs within the New Year, tried to decrease the studies of any bitter energy struggles behind closed doorways.

“You’ve seen from the Prime Minister this week that he’s absolutely focused on taking all the steps that are required to equip the country to beat coronavirus,” he stated. PTI