‘Boris Johnson has got a second act in him’: Tories say they may still ask him back as Prime Minister
Just after 3pm on Monday 12 December, three years to the day after he secured the biggest Conservative majority in decades, Boris Johnson rose to ask a question in the House of Commons.
As he stood up, a small group of Tory backbenchers close by registered their approval with customary “hear, hears”.
His question was unsurprising – to ask Defence Secretary Ben Wallace about further military help for Ukraine – but the timing, on the third anniversary of that historic victory, was clear. The ex-prime minister was telling his political allies and enemies alike: “I am still here.”
Mr Johnson’s 2022 started badly – overshadowed by the row over Partygate – and went downhill from there. He was fined by the Metropolitan Police Service over lockdown breaches in Downing Street and, after an unprecedented number of ministerial resignations in July, he admitted that the Westminster “herd” had moved against him and resigned.
But following the messy weeks of Liz Truss’ premiership, followed by a “quickie” coronation of Rishi Sunak that Mr Johnson’s allies believe their man could have stopped, the ex-Prime Minister has now made it clear he intends to stay at the frontline of British and international politics in 2023.
His spokesman told i: “Mr Johnson plans to continue to campaign for Ukrainian victory against Russia, to campaign for levelling up at home, and to make the case for freedom and democracy around the world.”
The eyebrows of Conservative MPs will be raised at the mention of campaigning for levelling up – a policy agenda Mr Johnson placed at the centre of his premiership, and which some believe has been downgraded by Mr Sunak.
It also underlines that Mr Johnson will not just stick to Ukraine and is prepared to wade into domestic matters as a backbencher, which could prove uncomfortable for the current Prime Minister.
More significantly, allies of Mr Johnson believe 2023 could mark the start of his “second act” as Prime Minister – if he can clear the “hurdle” of his appearance at the official Covid Inquiry, which begins taking evidence in public in the spring, and if Mr Sunak does badly at May’s local elections.
An MP friend of Mr Johnson said: “Looking ahead to 2023, there are two things that are absolutely critical in terms of how Boris plays it – firstly in terms of the Covid inquiry, he needs to clear that hurdle. The second factor will be to see how Rishi is doing in the opinion polls.
“If the opinion polls indicate a Tory loss [in 2024], then the natural instinct for self-survival will kick in and if that means Boris, then some people will take a deep breath and say ‘so be it’ – even if they are against him now.
“It will be a choice of government or opposition. If he can overcome the hurdle of the inquiry and if the polls are low [for the Tories], there is no one else with his personality who can deliver a victory.”
The idea of yet another prime ministerial change may not seem as far-fetched as it sounds – after all, few would have predicted Mr Sunak taking over from Ms Truss so quickly, and the party has a history of getting rid of unpopular leaders.
In figures that were confirmed by the 1922 Committee, Mr Johnson notched up 102 nominations from Tory MPs in the brief contest to succeed Ms Truss in October – two more than the required 100 to get onto the ballot.
Despite meeting this threshold, Mr Johnson said at the time he had decided to stand aside because the party was still disunited and it was “not the right time” for him to take over.
Friends claim there are even more MPs who would have backed him – around 120, roughly a third of the parliamentary party.
If the polls continue to be dire for Mr Sunak, and the Conservatives do badly at the May local elections, then more Conservative MPs could decide to back Mr Johnson’s “second act” in the interests of avoiding defeat to Labour at the general election in 2024.
The friend said: “There will be enough MPs who will put their past allegiances aside, and if they feel he is the only one who can deliver, then Boris is back in business and he will be best placed to take us into the next election.
“He certainly had the numbers [in October] and had he stood he would have almost certainly won the members’ ballot.
“There was a significant number of people who would not have voted for Rishi on the basis that he played a role in bringing Boris down.”
Mr Johnson himself has remained tight-lipped about whether he wants to run again – although in his resignation speech he gave a hint that he planned to stage a comeback at some point, when he referred to Cinncinatus, a Roman statesman who “returned to his plough” – without mentioning that he returned to lead the Roman republic.
He has spent his time out of Downing Street on the lucrative speech-making circuit, a solution to the personal money troubles that dogged him while he was in office – including his costly divorce settlement.
The weekend before his Commons appearance he was in Venice with his wife Carrie and their children to attend the wedding of two senior Tory aides, Sophia True and Declan Lyons. His financial situation has “improved”, friends said.
The ally said if enough Tories wanted a change of leader after the May elections “that will appeal to Boris because he does feel like he has been unfairly treated”.
“This is a guy who delivered a majority of 80, something we had not seen in decades, he took us through Covid,” they said.
“He has got the right to feel badly treated. There would be some sense of justice in him coming back.
“I think he has got a second act in him, but it will depend on whether the party wants him and makes it clear to him with the support of enough MPs.”
However, a number of Conservative MPs are already resigned to defeat in 2024 – and several have announced they are standing down rather than lose to Labour on polling day.
Even Mr Johnson’s own seat of Uxbridge and South Ruislip, where he holds a majority of 7,210, is under threat – although some of his supporters believe if he returned as Prime Minister he would be able to defend it.
Yet others in the party believe that Mr Johnson’s handling of Partygate, which dragged on for months, has contributed to the damage to the Tories in the eyes of voters, and there can be no comeback.
A Tory MP who was aghast at the PM’s conduct in the first half of 2022 says it is extraordinary that he could be considering a return to No10. “The turmoil, the disunity we’ve all been through – that’s on him,” they said.
Mr Sunak has a chance to recover in the polls, and may do so if inflation is brought under control and the cost of living crisis eases in 2023.
And the Covid Inquiry will be more than just a mere “hurdle” for Mr Johnson to jump over. The ex-prime minister will be the key witness before former Court of Appeal judge Baroness Hallett’s public investigation into how the Government’s handling of the pandemic, and her past form as chair of the 7/7 bombings inquiry shows she is not someone who will oversee a whitewash.
Mr Johnson will be grilled by Lady Hallett’s chief QC, Hugo Keith, whom insiders say is “savagely forensic” and will tear apart the ex-prime minister on the witness stand if he tries to “do a Boris” and go into the courtroom unprepared. A source close to the ex-PM said Mr Johnson will cooperate fully with the inquiry.
Mr Johnson also awaits the outcome of the privileges committee inquiry, chaired by Labour MP Harriet Harman, into whether he misled parliament over Partygate, and which will publish its findings in the new year.
A friend of the former PM admitted there is currently “no momentum” for a Johnson comeback, but that could all change in 2023.
The ally said: “For now, Rishi is the leader and Boris has to wait. No one is talking about a challenge now. It is a question of how events will unfold from next Easter onwards.
“If we have a disaster in the May local elections then some of the people who got rid of Boris will start agitating again.
“The reason they got rid of Boris is because they were worried about the opinion polls. This will be a real poll. They will then start saying ‘It’s P45 time’ and for the general election we need someone who can win.”
