Cabinet Reshuffle: Chancellor Sajid Javid Quits After Boris Johnson Orders Him To Fire Advisers

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sajid Javid, has quit as Boris Johnson reshuffles his Cabinet.

Javid resigned on Thursday, 13 February, after the Prime Minister asked him to sack all his advisers. He is the first Chancellor to leave before presenting a Budget since Lord Randolph Churchill in 1886.

Javid has been replaced by Rishi Sunak, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, who has been promoted.

​Javid's departure follows months of tension between the Chancellor and Johnson's special adviser, Dominic Cummings.

In August last year one of Javid's advisers, Sonia Khan, was escorted from Downing Street by police after her security clearance was withdrawn.

​Javid - who ran for the leadership of the party last year - reportedly "voiced his anger" to Boris Johnson about the manner of her departure.

The Chancellor's departure even caught the Leader of the Commons, Jacob Rees-Mogg, on the hop.

​During business questions in Parliament Labour MP Jeff Smith asked him: "Can we have a statement on the surprising news that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has been sacked?"

Rees-Mogg was clearly unaware Javid had resigned and replied: "The honourable gentleman is ahead of me on the news cycle."

Sunak told reporters outside the Treasury he was "delighted" to be appointed Chancellor but declined to reply when a journalist asked him if he would be the prime minister's "puppet".​

Boris Johnson has also fired Northern Ireland Secretary Julian Smith only five weeks after he helped broker the return of power-sharing at Stormont.

​Smith’s departure has been greeted with bemusement in Northern Ireland, where he was seen as a safe pair of hands who had got to know his brief well.  

​Who else was sacked? 

Johnson has also fired Andrea Leadsom, the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, hours after she had expressed her disappointment at the Prime Minister’s decision to go ahead with HS2, which runs straight through her Northamptonshire constituency.

Leadsom has been replaced by Alok Sharma, who will also be the minister in charge of the COP26 climate change conference in Glasgow later this year.

Sharma had previously been International Development Secretary and that role has gone to Anne-Marie Trevelyan, who has been promoted from being a junior armed forces minister.

There had been rumours Dominic Cummings wanted the prime minister to scrap the Department for International Development - which hands out foreign aid - and merge it with the Foreign Office. 

Esther McVey has also lost her job as housing minister. Her boss Robert Jenrick stays on as head of the Department for Housing, Communities and Local Government.

Both Leadsom and McVey were one time contenders for the leadership of the party and Johnson may have wanted to clip their wings. 

Theresa Villiers has also been sacked as Environment Secretary, only a month after she said the "legal barriers to the import" of chlorinated chicken and hormone-injected beef from the US would "stay in place" post-Brexit. 

The Prime Minister is keen to push through a free trade deal with the US and Villiers has been replaced at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs by Cornish MP George Eustice, who will be expected to be more flexible than his predecessor.

​Also on their way out is Geoffrey Cox, the Attorney General whose advice to Theresa May was crucial during her failed Brexit process.

He has been replaced by Suella Braverman, another Johnson loyalist and hard Brexiteer.

Nicky Morgan - who stepped down as an MP at the election - has given up her job as Culture Secretary. There was controversy in December when Johnson gave her a peerage in order for her to stay on in the Cabinet.

Baroness Morgan has been replaced by Oliver Dowden, who used to work in PR before entering Parliament.

​​The reshuffle is expected to be based on the recommendations of Johnson’s senior adviser, Dominic Cummings, but the Prime Minister is not thought to be planning to abolish or merge any ministries as he has reportedly been urged to by Cummings. 

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, Home Secretary Priti Patel and Defence Secretary Ben Wallace are all expected to retain their posts and their may be a new job for Stephen Barclay, the outgoing Brexit Secretary.

​Three junior ministers have also lost their jobs - Nusrat Ghani and George Freeman in the Department of Transport and Chris Skidmore in the Department for Education.