BORIS Johnson’s brother quit the government after his wife told him: “It’s me or Boris.”
Sources close to the family say Jo Johnson‘s wife Amelia Gentleman put pressure on him to leave front-line politics amid an increasingly bitter Tory civil war.
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Amelia, 47, who is mother to Jo’s two children, is a journalist for the left-wing Guardian.
She tweets regularly about the government’s treatment of migrants and spent a year writing about its handling of the Windrush scandal.
Daughter of the left-leaning anti-establishment artist David Gentleman, Amelia is a member of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party and also close to Boris’s estranged wife Marina Wheeler.
A source close to her said: “She hated to see her beloved sister-in-law being put through the mill by Boris.
“While Marina was recovering from two operations for cervical cancer, Boris was off gallivanting with Carrie Symonds.
“It didn’t sit well with her and she gave Jo a very hard time over it.”
‘RESOLVABLE TENSION’
Another family source said: “The Johnsons have always been a politically diverse clan, but Amelia decided she’d had enough.
“Seeing Boris presiding over an increasingly fractured government, threatening to break the law and promising to drag the country out of the EU or die in a ditch – it all just got too much.
“She confronted Jo and told him he had to choose between her and his brother.”
The resignation of passionate remainer Jo, 47, came as a devastating blow to Boris on Friday.
The Universities Minister stepped down from the Cabinet and walked away from politics altogether, citing “unresolvable tension” over his brother’s Brexit policy.
He suggested Boris was not acting in the national interest.
In his tweet, Jo said: “It’s been an honour to represent Orpington for nine years and to serve as a minister under three PMs.
‘DIVIDES FAMILIES’
In recent weeks I’ve been torn between family loyalty and the national interest – it’s an unresolvable tension and time for others to take on my roles as an MP and Minister.”
His brother dubbed him “a fantastic guy and a brilliant minister”, adding: “Jo does not agree with me about the European Union because it’s an issue that obviously divides families and divides everybody.
“I am very sad to see the loss of Jo and of people who have the lost the whip in the last few days.”
The Johnson family have regularly disagreed on key issues and backed different political parties.
Boris and Jo’s sister Rachel, said in an interview: “We are a very mixed-race family politically and my father tends to marry socialists.”
Her father is Stanley Johnson, the former Tory MEP and environmentalist, her mother the left-wing painter Charlotte Wahl.
Stanley himself says of his second wife, Jennifer Kidd: “I would not dream of presuming which way my spouse would vote. When I was a candidate in Teignbridge I had a faint hope she might vote for me but we didn’t get her on the electoral register in time.
“I would say, having been married for 52 years in total, that it is a thoroughly good idea to avoid serious political conversation with one’s spouse. It only leads to trouble.”
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