Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s top adviser Dominic Cummings will continue to work until mid-December, and another senior aide will serve as temporary chief of staff, Johnson’s office said yesterday.
 Cummings had earlier been pictured walking out of Johnson’s Downing Street office with a box in his arms, and several local outlets had reported he had quit his post with immediate effect. Director of communications Lee Cain would also stay in post until mid December.
 “The prime minister has asked Sir Edward Lister to take on the role of chief of staff for an interim period pending a permanent appointment to the post,” a Downing Street spokesman said.
Cummings, who masterminded the 2016 Brexit referendum vote and Johnson’s 2019 landslide election win, had earlier told the BBC that he wanted to be largely redundant by the end of this year, once Britain has left informal membership of the European Union.
The exit of Johnson’s presiding right hand man marks one of the most significant changes to the prime minister’s inner circle to date: Cummings was cast by some as Johnson’s “brain” — a figure who wielded pivotal influence.
A committed Brexiteer, he was seen by European diplomats as a hardline influence on Johnson over Brexit and the proponent of Madman Theory — a reference to former US president Richard Nixon’s attempt to contain the Soviet Union during the Cold War by convincing Moscow that he was irrational.
Cummings, 48, educated at Oxford and married to the daughter of a baronet, scorned the British political establishment and hurled barbs at reporters and cabinet ministers alike.
He was cast in the Spitting Image satirical puppet show as an alien who repeatedly threatened Johnson with resignation — and sometimes asked to eat his child.
In the show, Johnson always told Cummings he could not eat his child.
An unidentified source told the BBC that Cummings “jumped because otherwise he would be pushed soon”.
With Johnson pondering decisions on future relations with the EU and the Covid-stricken economy that could make or break British prosperity for a generation, the 56-year-old leader appeared trapped between rival factions within his inner circle in a drama akin to the court intrigues of a Tudor monarch. The battle spilled into the open with the resignation of his director of communications, Lee Cain, a close Cummings ally who had been tipped as a new chief of staff.
The Westminster political bubble was awash with speculation that Johnson’s fiancee Carrie Symonds aligned with Johnson’s new West Wing-style press secretary Allegra Stratton to oust Cain — to the displeasure of Cummings, who then threatened to resign.
Cummings told the BBC that “rumours of me threatening to resign are invented, rumours of me asking others to resign are invented”