Is Vote Leave losing its muscle in Downing Street? - BBC News
The departure of a key Dominic Cummings ally from No 10 changes the power dynamic inside government.
Boris Johnson's director of communications - and longest serving aide - Lee Cain (right) has resigned following a power struggle in Downing Street

After the hurricane of the last 24 hours, what's left behind the storm?

Let's face it, there are plenty of people in the Tory Party who have been deeply unhappy about the government's performance in the last few months and who hope, if perhaps don't quite believe, that the shenanigans in Downing Street could be the beginning of a new, calm, world order.

And the departure of Lee Cain may even hasten the exit of the prime minister's most senior adviser, Dominic Cummings.

It's been clear for a while in SW1 that he wanted to do less of the day-to-day political fire fighting, trying to focus more on particular projects.

But given his closeness to the departing Lee Cain, and it is understood, frustration with what has been going on, it is not impossible that he might end up leaving Boris Johnson's side sooner rather than later.

It was suggested to me tonight that he was always due to go in the New Year.

One insider said he had let it be known fairly widely that he was interested in stepping back in the next few months. He did not, however, it's understood, threaten to quit last night.

There is no official confirmation of that from any of the factions involved in the No 10 implosion.

But from the outside it seems, with the UK about to leave the departure lounge of the EU in a matter of weeks, that the group that drove through Brexit, and drove the prime minister's victory is losing its muscle.

Mr Cummings' departure would be a huge change to the dynamics in Downing Street, if it happens.

He has had unparalleled power, aside from the prime minister. He's provoked rage, but inspired loyalty too, and he broke the cardinal rule of any government adviser by becoming the story so dramatically in May.

But while many MPs and ministers would cheer that, hoping for a shift to a more conventional Downing Street, it is far from certain that Mr Johnson would prosper as an individual politician if he lost two of his closest aides in quick succession.

The prime minister's senior adviser Dominic Cummings was instrumental in the successful pro-Brexit campaign

And as ever, the picture is more complicated than it might appear.

The divides inside government are simply not as straightforward as Vote Leavers on one side, everyone else on the other.

Mr Johnson has been prime minister for well over a year, it's nearly 12 months since the election victory, and the referendum was more than four years ago.

Certainly the operation in there sought publicly to emphasise the divide and there has been a natural division between Leavers and Remainers, but in terms of the individuals and personalities working together behind closed doors, the world is less binary than the political universe that Boris Johnson was part of creating.

And now, while the Vote Leave tribe made plenty of enemies, and often seemed to enjoy doing so, even deliberately, the prime minister cannot be sure that a new operation will bring him more political success or stability.

He is still the same person, the same leader, with the same flaws and and the same strengths.

A rejigged team may, or may not make life easier for him. Just as the talks over a trade deal after Brexit grind towards a finale, the dominance of Vote Leave is coming to a close too.

But just as the negotiations haven't finished, the final act of the Brexit project is yet to end.