Even Leave Voters Feel ‘Betrayed’ By PM’s Refusal To Sack Brexit Architect Cummings
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Brexit supporters who Dominic Cummings helped lead to victory in the 2016 EU referendum are demanding the embattled aide resign or be sacked for breaking lockdown rules.
Cummings’s strategic advice was crucial to the Vote Leave campaign to which Boris Johnson pinned his ambitions four years ago. He was rewarded with an appointment as the prime minister’s chief adviser in 2019 when Johnson entered No.10.
But some of those who gave the campaign and the party their votes say Cummings’s journey to Durham in March during lockdown and Johnson’s subsequent refusal to sack him have left them furious.
It is a stark contrast with Tory ministers who have in some cases tied themselves in knots trying to justify Cummings’s behaviour and his retention as part of the government machine.
Despite being a “big supporter of Boris” and a Leave voter who would “still vote Brexit if we had a vote tomorrow”, Adrian, 44, from Cornwall, said the Cummings story had made him “really angry” and that it had affected how he might vote in the future.
“I’m really unhappy with the way the government has handled this crisis,” he said.
“[Cummings] has broken lockdown measures that most ordinary people have followed to the letter.
“Yesterday I wanted him to apologise and resign, and all I got was this media circus and him blaming the media and everyone else.”
He added: “He’s sticking two fingers up to us.”
Joe, 58, from Belfast, said he was “outraged” that the government was supporting Cummings’s “laughable story” and added it had “definitely reduced” his opinion of Johnson.
“I expected him to be sacked or forced to resign,” he said. “The loopholes Cummings claims don’t seem to be there for everyone else.”
Madeline Corr, 59, from Ascot, said Johnson and Cummings had “totally compromised the party” and that it was “political...
