Knifing Boris was like a bomb going off in my hands, says Gove

MICHAEL Gove has admitted he regrets ‘torpedoing’ Boris Johnson’s first Tory leadership bid – and says the move wound up like a bomb going off in his own hands.

The Housing Secretary admitted his decision to attack the now Prime Minister in 2016 and run for leader himself had almost ended his career.

Mr Gove stunned Westminster when he announced he could no longer back Mr Johnson for the leadership following David Cameron’s resignation in the wake of the Brexit vote.

The two men had worked side by side on the Vote Leave campaign that helped win the EU referendum for Brexiteers.

Speaking to MPs yesterday, Mr Gove admitted it had been ‘political suicide’ to run against Mr Johnson after destroying his leadership campaign.

He made the remark in a Commons session about planning reforms, which are being reviewed amid criticism from Tory backbenchers.

Labour’s planning spokesman Ruth Cadbury said she had not ‘seen (him) torpedo something so effectively since he sunk the Prime Minister’s leadership in 2016’.

Responding, Mr Gove joked: ‘Well, I’m grateful to (her) for taking me back to the halcyon days of 2016. It wasn’t so much a torpedo being launched as an unexploded bomb going off in my own hands.

‘But as the former member for Kensington and Chelsea Sir Malcolm Rifkind pointed out, one of the things about committing political suicide is that you always live to regret it.’

In June 2016 Mr Johnson’s allies warned there was a ‘deep pit in hell’ for Mr Gove after he quit as his campaign manager, saying he was not up to being Prime Minister.

Mr Gove delivered a brutal verdict on Mr Johnson’s capabilities and questioned whether his ‘heart and soul’ were in taking the UK out of the EU.

He effectively ended Mr Johnson’s hopes of succeeding Mr Cameron – a race eventually won by Theresa May.

The two men ran against each other again in 2019 after Mrs May’s resignation. Mr Johnson was victorious, but kept his rival in the Government, moving him from Environment Secretary to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.

Mr Gove replaced Robert Jenrick in the housing department at the last reshuffle, with additional powers to mastermind the levelling-up agenda and strengthen the union.