Prime Minister ‘decided Gavin Williamson was guilty 48 hours before sacking him’

Had his chips: Gavin Williamson posted this picture of himself in McDonald’s last night

Gavin Williamson has received the backing of more than 200 Conservative MPs since his brutal sacking by Theresa May, friends revealed last night.

Amid mounting Tory unease at Mr Williamson’s dramatic ejection from the Cabinet, allies of the former defence secretary said around two-thirds of the party had sent him supportive messages.

He is also understood to have received a consolatory call from DUP leader Arlene Foster, whose MPs prop up Mrs May’s Government.

Mr Williamson, who was sacked on Wednesday for allegedly leaking information from the National Security Council about Chinese firm Huawei – allegations he strenuously denies – is now mulling whether to make a potentially explosive speech in the Commons as he fights to clear his name.

He told the Mail last night: ‘I have been royally screwed over – it is pretty painful. The only thing I want to do now is clear my name.’   

Downing Street had reportedly decided that Mr Williamson was guilty of leaking 48 hours before he was given an ultimatum of quitting or being sacked.

Sources told The Times that it was apparent on Monday that Mr Williamson no longer had a place in Theresa May’s government – two days before he was sacked.  

A cabinet source had said: ‘Everyone knew [Mr Williamson] was a serial leaker so the onus was on him to disprove it. The test is whether he has the prime minister’s confidence. 

‘That is the only test that needs to be applied.’ 

Mr Williamson is now mulling whether to make a potentially explosive speech in the Commons as he fights to clear his name

Mr Williamson is now mulling whether to make a potentially explosive speech in the Commons as he fights to clear his name

Downing Street has refused to publish details of the report into the leak that sealed Mr Williamson's fate

Downing Street has refused to publish details of the report into the leak that sealed Mr Williamson’s fate

Downing Street has refused to publish details of the report into the leak that sealed Mr Williamson’s fate. Cabinet Secretary Sir Mark Sedwill, who oversaw the inquiry, has also resisted calls to ask the police to investigate, despite opposition claims that the leak – which revealed secret details of Huawei’s involvement in the UK’s 5G mobile network – constituted a breach of the Official Secrets Act which can carry a two-year jail term.

Mr Williamson has claimed Sir Mark was engaged in a ‘vendetta’ against him amid suggestions that he found him guilty before the inquiry even began. One Whitehall source yesterday said Sir Mark had told a meeting of officials on the morning the Huawei leak was reported that he believed Mr Williamson was guilty.

‘Sedwill was telling people last Wednesday that Gavin was guilty,’ the source said. ‘It raised a few eyebrows because at that stage no one can have known.’

His astonishing ‘F*** the PM’ memo

Mr Williamson scrawled ‘F*** the Prime Minister’ across an official memo as his relationship with Downing Street deteriorated, it emerged last night.

Friends of the former defence secretary confirmed that he had written the aggressive message in frustration after Theresa May overruled his controversial decision to deploy the UK’s new aircraft carrier to the South China Sea.

Word of Mr Williamson’s angry response in February spread like wildfire around the Ministry of Defence and is said to have reached the ears of Cabinet Secretary Sir Mark Sedwill, who would play a central role in his downfall.

Mr Williamson’s announcement that HMS Queen Elizabeth would be deployed to the South China Sea underlined his position as the Cabinet’s leading hawk on China’s expansionist policies. He said the UK had to be prepared to use ‘hard power’ against countries that ‘flout international law’, as critics claim Beijing has done in the disputed South China Sea.

The decision angered Beijing and caused consternation in Whitehall, where officials were eyeing up a potential trade deal with the communist giant. China’s rulers were so irritated that they cancelled a planned visit by the Chancellor Philip Hammond.

Downing Street responded by overruling Mr Williamson, with the PM’s official spokesman making it clear that she would make the ‘final decision’ on the route taken by the aircraft carrier when it is deployed to the Pacific.

The row highlighted the deteriorating relationship between Mrs May and the man who masterminded her 2016 leadership victory and forged an alliance with the DUP that kept her in power following the disastrous 2017 general election.

Mr Williamson had been one of Mrs May’s most trusted allies. But, as No 10 came to be dominated by Brexit, relations grew more strained.

The former Remainer became an increasingly vocal advocate of a hard Brexit. He was one of a handful of Cabinet ministers urging Mrs May to leave the EU without a deal if she could not get her plans through. 

Mr Williamson and Sir Mark are known to have clashed in recent months.

The Cabinet Secretary, who also serves as the PM’s national security adviser, was said to be ‘sore’ after coming off second-best during a clash over defence spending last year when Mr Williamson secured more cash for conventional forces at a time when Sir Mark was pushing for the money to be invested in cyber defences.

One source said: ‘Gavin and Mark basically agreed on 90 per cent of things.

‘In most relationships that would be enough for two people to get along.

‘But Mark is someone who if you are not 100 per cent with him, he sees you as being 100 per cent against him.’

Yesterday, Parliament’s cross-party National Security Committee demanded that Sir Mark, Britain’s top civil servant, hand over the evidence that led to Mr Williamson’s sacking.

Labour MP Dame Margaret Beckett, who chairs the committee, told Sir Mark that MPs had to be ‘apprised of the outcomes of this leak inquiry,’ adding: ‘This directly pertains to our work in scrutinising the National Security Council.’

The involvement of Huawei in the rollout of the high-speed, next-generation 5G network is highly controversial. The Chinese firm insists it is a private company, but ministers have been told that the security services judge it to be under the control of Beijing’s communist regime. The United States, which has banned Huawei from its networks, has warned that intelligence sharing with the UK could be jeopardised if the deal goes ahead.

No 10 yesterday denied tensions between Mr Williamson and Sir Mark had coloured the inquiry. A spokesman said the investigation, led by the Government’s chief security officer Dominic Fortescue, had been conducted ‘fairly and impartially’.

In the PM’s letter to Mr Williamson on Wednesday night, she said the investigation had found ‘compelling evidence’ that he was the source of the leak.

But the former defence secretary has told friends the only evidence produced against him by the PM was an 11-minute phone call with the Daily Telegraph journalist who reported the leak. The inquiry is said to have found that the reporter later spoke to ‘several’ other ministers and officials who attended the National Security Council meeting on April 23.

Mr Williamson, who was refused access to the inquiry’s findings, pointed out that he had reported the phone call himself and flatly denied divulging any details of the Government’s dealings with Huawei.

Mrs May yesterday said it had been a ‘difficult decision’ to sack Mr Williamson, adding: ‘This was not about what was leaked, but where it was leaked from. It was the importance of the question of trust around that National Security Council table.’

But she ducked a direct question about whether she was ‘convinced’ that Mr Williamson was responsible, telling ITV News: ‘I took the decision I did. It was the right decision.’

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