Johnson to Delay Cabinet Reshuffle as Labour Claims Six MPs Ready to Defect

Damage to Johnson's image over the 'Partygate' affair has been compounded by soaring inflation this year — driven by the near-doubling of fuel and energy prices thanks to sanctions on Russia over its demilitarisation and de-Nazification operation in Ukraine.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will hold back a cabinet reshuffle until autumn amid ongoing calls for his resignation.

Sources told the Daily Mail outlet the latest round of governmental musical chairs had been postponed because the PM would not return from a series of overseas trips until July 1 and wants to "more time to think through" his changes.

Sources said those "vulnerable" to losing their jobs included Environment Secretary George Eustice, Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng and Trade Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan.

An unnamed cabinet minister told The Times that those sacked could become "really vigorous agitators" demanding Johnson step down following the party's loss of two Parliamentary seats — Wakefield and Tiverton and Honiton — in by-elections last week.

Speaking to reporters at the G7 leaders' summit in the Bavarian alps on Monday, the PM insisted he had no worries about a palace coup during his eight-day foreign tour that began with the Commonwealth meeting in Rwanda and will continue with the NATO summit in Madrid.

"No, we settled that a couple of weeks ago and what we are doing is getting on with, number one, all the stuff we are doing to help people with the cost of living in the short term using the fiscal firepower we have," Johnson said, before reeling off a list of government aid schemes for households.

But one un-named ex-cabinet minister told the Daily Mirror the party leader was "completely delusional".

Meanwhile a "senior" Tory MP for one of the once-safe for Labour 'Red Wall' seats that went blue in the 2019 general election said Johnson was "showing increasing signs of a bunker mentality, and that never ends well."

Meanwhile, anonymous Labour sources claimed six Conservative MPs were still in talks over following Bury South MP Christian Wakeford's lead and crossing the floor to the opposition benches. The plan has been optimistically dubbed "Operation Domino".

On Monday morning Two Tory MPs denied rumours they were considering defecting.

"For the avoidance of doubt — again — I’m not bloody defecting," tweeted Dehenna Davison, MP for the Red Wall seat of Bishop Aukland in the northern 'Red Wall'. "To those anonymous colleagues spreading such rumours, my door is always open for a chat."

"Me neither — just to pop that on the record," chimed Romsey and Southampton North Caroline Nokes.

On Friday Johnson accused his back-bench critics of having no alternative policy ideas except re-joining European Union structures the public voted to leave in 2016.

"I love all these people but don’t forget that the only actual argument that I’ve heard some of my critics make of substance about the change of direction they’d like to see is for us to go back into the EU Single Market — that’s literally the only manifesto point I’ve seen," he said.

Damage to Johnson's image over the 'Partygate' affair has been compounded by soaring inflation this year. That has been driven by the near-doubling of fuel and energy prices thanks to sanctions on Russia over its demilitarisation and de-Nazification operation in Ukraine.

However, none of the opposition parties in Parliament oppose the sanctions or military aid to the Kiev regime. They also broadly back the government's environmental strategy that has seen fossil fuels phased out in favour of renewables — whose unreliability caused the energy crisis and gas price spike in Europe and the US during the unusually cold winter of 2020-21.