The British prime minister withheld sensitive secret intelligence from Boris Johnson when he served as foreign secretary out of fear he might expose it, according to reports that surfaced during the final phase of the contest to replace Theresa May.
Johnson is the front-runner to become the next Conservative Party leader and prime minister but has been dogged by questions about his suitability to lead the country.
The BBC and The Sun newspaper reported on Friday that he was denied a category of information when he became foreign secretary in 2016 apparently over concerns he had revealed classified information by mistake.
As foreign secretary he had overall responsibility for MI6 and would have been involved in authorizing sensitive operations.
“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,” a source told The Sun.
“Pre-meetings would be arranged without his knowledge before he’d come over to No 10.
“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.”
A Downing Street spokesman said: “We do not comment on intelligence matters.”
A source close to Johnson told the BBC he was able to see everything he needed to do his job as foreign secretary.
However, the reports will reignite concerns that the gaffe-prone former mayor of London cannot be trusted with the most important jobs in government.
Relatives of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe blame Johnson for a bungled diplomatic intervention that left her locked in an Iranian prison for the past three years.
He told MPs that the British-Iranian mother had been in Iran “teaching people journalism” despite her family’s insistence that she was visiting relatives.
His comments were later used in court by Iranian authorities who accused her of “plotting to topple the Iranian government.”
The 160,000 members of the Conservative Party will begin voting on Saturday to select their new leader.
Johnson is believed to have a big lead over Jeremy Hunt, the current foreign secretary, in the race to replace May as prime minister.
