Spy chiefs kept secrets from Boris Johnson when he was Foreign Secretary over fears he couldn’t be trusted
SECURITY chiefs kept top secrets from Boris Johnson when he was Foreign Secretary over fears he couldn’t be trusted, The Sun has been told.
Intelligence bosses were “anxious” about sharing the most sensitive information with the frontrunner in the race for No10 during his two years in the Cabinet.
The nerves were sparked by at least two instances when Boris was accused of revealing classified information by mistake.
The order to cut him out came directly from PM Theresa May, The Sun has also been told.
“Pre-meetings” were held before key discussion forums such as the Government’s COBRA emergency committee that Boris attended for security chiefs to brief the PM on alone.
And on other occasions when highly sensitive intelligence files were presented to Mr Johnson, there was an attempt by his briefers to keep the information vague and undetailed.
The revelation poses serious questions for Boris’s relationship with intelligence bosses if he becomes PM in three weeks' time.
It is also an embarrassment for Boris because as Foreign Secretary, one of his jobs was to oversee two of Britain’s three intelligence services – MI6 and GCHQ.
SECURITY GAFFES
One very well placed source told The Sun: “The PM didn’t think Boris could be trusted because he had a loose tongue. He made the agencies anxious. He wasn’t told everything because of that.
“Pre-meetings would be arranged without his knowledge before he’d come over to No10.
“They probably both share the blame for the situation, and it was a clash of their worst traits - Boris is a big mouth and Theresa can be a paranoid control freak.”
In the first instance of indiscretion alleged to The Sun that angered Mrs May, Boris revealed details during a media interview about the early investigation into the murder of soldier Lee Ribgy in 2013.
He had recently been told the sensitive information during a meeting of COBRA, which senior police officers had asked all attendees to protect.
The second gaffe is claimed to have come during a Cabinet meeting in No10, when Mr Johnson blurted out some highly classified intelligence about a hostage in Syria to the whole table.
'BIG MOUTH' BORIS
Very few Cabinet ministers had the security clearance to hear the material, and it lead to a personal dressing down for Boris by Mrs May, The Sun has also been told.
A spokesman for Mr Johnson poured doubt on the claims, saying: “Boris wasn’t cut out of anything. We reject these claims out right.”
But the Back Boris spokesman did not deny that Mrs May had blasted the senior Tory over the Syria incident.
Downing Street as well as the Cabinet Office also both refused to deny that Boris was excluded from some key meetings intentionally when contacted by The Sun.
A Government spokesman said: “We do not comment on intelligence matters.”
A senior Whitehall source added: “It’s not a given that the Foreign Secretary is shown everything. Ministers see what they need to see.”
In a controversy that continues, Boris was accused of a major gaffe while Foreign Secretary when he disclosed misleading information about Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.
He told MPs in 2017 that the British mum who is still locked up in Iran today was “simply teaching people journalism” – which her family insist is untrue, and say may have lengthened her stay behind bars.
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