Chris Mason: Raab and Sunak both face moment of jeopardy

Westminster waits.

A sense of limbo. The prime minister deciding not to decide, yet, about the future of his deputy, Dominic Raab.

The judgement call is binary: keep him, or sack him.

Here is what we know:

The prime minister has seen the report from Adam Tolley KC. The deputy prime minister has too.

Rishi Sunak and Dominic Raab did not speak on Thursday.

Mr Raab has said for some time that he would resign if it was concluded he was a bully. But Mr Raab has not resigned.

It seems reasonable, therefore, to conclude the deputy prime minister does not think the evidence in the report amounts to bullying.

So the decision over his future is down to the prime minister.

So why the delay?

The government had created an expectation Mr Sunak’s verdict would be quick.

Those participants in this process had been told to expect its outcome on Thursday, but it didn’t come.

Equally, we should add a bit of context: when Boris Johnson was prime minister, he waited several months to publish and offer his verdict on an inquiry into his Home Secretary, Priti Patel.

That inquiry, by his standards adviser Sir Alex Allan, concluded Ms Patel had broken the Ministerial Code, but Mr Johnson ignored it.

Ms Patel carried on. Sir Alex resigned.

Talking to us on BBC Newscast, Sir Alex said of Rishi Sunak’s quandary now: “You can understand, if it’s a huge report, the prime minister may want time to consider it. But as far as I can see it probably cannot be completely clear cut. Otherwise he would have come out with a decision one way or the other.”

But the waiting is having consequences.

Mr Raab knows the names of those in his department, the Ministry of Justice, who were complainants.

Those complainants fear he might keep his job.

“The prime minister’s prevarication makes it feel more likely that the whole thing, the last five months of agony for Raab’s subordinates, will end in a whitewash,” somebody who advised Mr Raab in a senior role in one department told the BBC.

Are resignations possible from the civil service if Mr Raab keeps his job?

“I think so,” Dave Penman of the civil servants’ union the FDA said.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Very few people have seen Adam Tolley’s report, and next to nothing has leaked from it.

We should reserve judgement until we see it.

Mr Sunak faces turbulence whatever he decides to do.

Sack the man who loyally campaigned for him to become prime minister and create a big vacancy at the top of government and a big question about whether he should have appointed him in the first place.

Keep him and face potential mutiny inside the Ministry of Justice and the prospect of alleged victims of Mr Raab’s behaviour resigning, demanding a move and maybe talking publicly.

“Either outcome gives him a management problem,” one senior Conservative MP reflected to me.

A friend of Mr Raab told me the deputy prime minister has long been “moderately optimistic” the report might be less than clear cut.

Let’s see.

Mr Raab is facing a moment of jeopardy over his job.

Rishi Sunak is facing a moment of jeopardy over his judgement.