"He has been spelling out to them [cabinet ministers] that 14 million people voted for him."
If the Conservative Party "want to deprive him [Johnson] doing that job, they have take to take that mandate off them", the source says.
The poor fool can't admit to himself that, even if it was a personal mandate, no-one has to take it off him, the mandate has gone away of its own accord. He managed to kill off a hefty proportion of Conservative voters through sheer incompetence, and at least 50% of the rest won't vote for any party led by him under any circumstances.