Dominic Cummings, the chief adviser to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, will resign before the end of the year, he confirms Thursday evening BBC News. According to Cummings, his departure has nothing to do with coverage of internal disputes within the British cabinet.
Cummings’ position has been speculated in the UK in recent days, after chief of communications Lee Cain resigned earlier this week following reports of internal disputes in the UK cabinet.
Against BBC News Cummings says his departure is unrelated to this. “The rumors that I might have threatened to resign are fabricated,” he says. According to the top advisor, he already hinted at a departure in a blog post in January. In that blog post, he said he wanted to make himself “largely redundant” in the British cabinet by the end of 2020.
Cummings has played a major role in Prime Minister Johnson’s Brexit campaign in recent years. Cummings came up with the slogan, among other things Take Back Control (retake control), which led that campaign.
After the victory in the Brexit referendum and Johnson’s election victory, Cummings was taken by the prime minister to 10 Downing Street, where he has a lot of influence on the prime minister, especially in the background.
Cummings violated corona rules
In May of this year, Cummings was discredited after it was revealed that he had violated lockdown rules in March. The top advisor had made a 400-kilometer trip to his hometown of Durham in Northern England, when he had already tested positive for the coronavirus and his wife was showing clear symptoms.
During that time, people in the UK were only allowed to visit others for essential assistance. Cummings argued that he needed the help of his parents in raising his children.
Several British politicians, including Johnson’s party members, urged Cummings to leave, but the British Prime Minister decided after a conversation with the adviser that he could stay on.
Johnson said he concluded that Cummings had acted “responsibly, in accordance with the law, and with integrity.” He had “no alternative” and “followed the instincts of every father and parent, and I don’t hold him accountable,” said the prime minister.
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