Revealed: Theresa May ‘told spy chiefs to keep secrets from Boris Johnson when he was Foreign Secretary over fears he couldn’t be trusted’
- PM allegedly wanted to avoid Mr Johnson being shown secret intelligence
- Move is said to have worried those within the intelligence services at MI6
- This is because Mr Johnson’s role involved authorising sensitive operations
- Sources close to Mr Johnson insist he saw everything he had to for his role
Theresa May tried to restrict Boris Johnson’s access to sensitive intelligence information when he became foreign secretary, it was claimed today.
The Prime Minister allegedly wanted to avoid Mr Johnson being shown a category of sensitive secret intelligence after he was given the position in July 2016.
The move is said to have worried those within the intelligence services at MI6 because Mr Johnson’s role involved authorising sensitive operations.
Conservative party leadership contender Boris Johnson, pictured during a Tory leadership hustings in York yesterday, took over as foreign secretary in July 2016
But sources close to 55-year-old Mr Johnson insisted to BBC News that there was no row about access denial and he saw everything he had to for his role.
Mr Johnson first visited MI6’s headquarters in London as foreign secretary three months after his appointment and was shown around by its chief Alex Younger.
Mr Younger said at the time that the politician was shown ‘first-hand the kind of work that MI6 does’, while Mr Johnson spoke of ‘how vital the work they do is’.
But sources said Downing Street had been trying to clamp down on Mr Johnson’s access, which one individual familiar with events described as ‘control freakery’.

Mr Johnson and Prime Minister Theresa May in the Cabinet Room at 10 Downing Street in 2016
Others told the BBC it was a ‘combination of everyone’s faults’, thanks to fears over Mr Johnson’s lack of discipline and enmity between him and Mrs May.
But sources at Downing Street said it took all decisions on access properly and officials were confident Mr Johnson could ‘see what he needed to see’.
Today’s report follows claims in November 2017 that British spies were ‘wary’ of sharing information with Mr Johnson because they did not trust him.
Left-wing political journal the New Statesman reported at the time that a string of diplomats had little confidence in the foreign secretary’s style.

Mr Johnson was shown around MI6’s headquarters in London by its chief Alex Younger (pictured at the University of St Andrews last December)
It came a month after he was criticised for saying the former ISIS stronghold of Sirte in Libya could be ‘the next Dubai’ once they ‘clear the dead bodies away’.
Mr Johnson is the favourite in the race with Jeremy Hunt to take over from Mrs May as leader of the Conservative Party.
Voting will open up tomorrow to the party’s 160,000 members to vote to choose the winner, who simply needs to achieve more than 50 per cent of the vote.
Both contenders have said they are prepared to walk away from the EU without a deal if they cannot secure a new agreement on the terms of Britain’s withdrawal.