Boris Johnson is set to confront Theresa May face-to-face tomorrow with his controversial demand for £100million a week for the NHS after Brexit.
Allies said the Foreign Secretary has vowed to raise the much-disputed Brexit dividend in Cabinet risking a new Tory row.
It piles fresh pressure on the Prime Minister’s leadership after a senior Tory MP, Nicholas Soames, complained her offering to voters was dull, dull, dull”. Sir Nicholas added today: It really won’t be enough to get people to vote against The Corbini.
Mr Johnson is said to be planning the intervention despite Labour reporting him to the UK Statistics Authority when he resurrected the misleading NHS pledge, originally made during the EU referendum , a week ago.
An ally of Mr Johnson said: Boris believes that if the Tories are going to beat Corbyn at the next election they must make the NHS a top priority and deliver new funding.
The cabinet will have to act and the sooner the better.
Meanwhile Labour MPs were briefed on the party’s own plans for emergency Budget to pump £5billion into the NHS.
The demand – revealed by the Sunday Mirror – was raised at tonight’s meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party ahead of the party leader attending an NHS rally on Thursday.
Shadow Health Secretary Jonathan Ashworth told MPs: “The toxic privatisation agenda in our NHS has gone too far.
Billions of pounds has flowed out of the NHS into private sector hands leaving a poorer service for patients.
Mr Johnson first resurrected his promise last week as he defended his claim Britain will take back control of £350million a week in total.
The UK Statistics Authority had branded that figure emblazoned on the side of Brexit campaign Vote Leave’s battle bus a clear misuse of official statistics because it includes money not sent to Brussels at all and does not count EU funding in the UK.
Yet Mr Johnson claimed it was now even higher and will rise to £438million.
Shadow Brexit Secretary Sir Keir Starmer reported him to the statistics watchdog and is awaiting a reply.