Boris Johnson’s Brexit guru Dominic Cummings behaves like an inquisitive child in cabinet, constantly breaking into discussions with the question “Why?”, one minister has said.
The prime minister’s senior adviser has gained a fearsome reputation for his combative approach to Brexit, both during his time leading the Vote Leave campaign and since entering Downing Street in July.
Remain-backing former Tory minister Dominic Grieve has branded him a “Maoist right-winger” engaged in “a culture war on our constitutional traditions”.
But the cabinet minister insisted that Cummings was far from belligerent in meetings around the famous coffin-shaped table in No 10.
Instead, he disrupts discussions by stopping ministers in their tracks as they set out their understanding of the situation and the options available to the government and urging them to reconsider their assumptions.
The minister told The Independent: “In meetings, it’s a lot like having a small child in the corner – ‘Why? Why? Why?’
“Things we all take for granted, he wants to take to pieces and start again.
“He is always very polite, doesn’t interrupt and then just makes his point. There’s no shouting or anything.”
The minister said Cummings’ approach had the benefit of forcing the government to re-examine assumptions which had developed during Theresa May’s premiership to decide whether they still applied.
In blogs since the Brexit vote, Mr Cummings has made clear his disdain for Mrs May’s decision to accept that the UK’s withdrawal must follow the template set out in the EU’s Article 50 rule, and for then triggering the negotiation process before deciding on its preferred outcome and making preparations to achieve it.
Speaking at a book launch last week, he said MPs had spent three years “swerving all over the shop” following the referendum and it was “not surprising some people are angry about it”.
The cabinet minister said Mr Cummings took advantage of being an outsider in the Westminster world and seeing events through the eyes of people from outside politics.
“He’s not in the bubble like the rest of us, he doesn’t know anyone (in Westminster) – like an ordinary person,” he said.
“I suppose it’s a good thing in many ways. You look at things with fresh eyes.”
Mr Cummings was taken on by Mr Johnson along with many of the Vote Leave team when he replaced Ms May in Downing Street in July.
He plans to stay on only until the scheduled date of Brexit on 31 October, before taking time off for medical treatment. It is not known whether he intends to return after recuperation.
