Sunak had abandoned Johnson’s government before it unraveled over the summer. He was also prescient, saying that the economic plan of Johnson’s replacement, Liz Truss, was based on “fantasy” economics. Truss lasted just six weeks after that plan caused massive disruption to Britain’s economy.
In a statement, Johnson said he had enough support to proceed to a vote among Conservative Party lawmakers on Monday. That claim was unsupported by tallies of lawmakers by the BBC and The Guardian, which did not show Johnson reaching the hurdle of 100 votes of 357 Tory members in the House of Commons.
Johnson said, “I believe I have much to offer but I am afraid that this is simply not the right time.”
Johnson said he had reached out to his competitors Sunak and the Conservative Party’s leader of the House of Commons, Penny Mordaunt, to strike some kind of deal — Johnson does not say what kind of deal — “because I hoped that we could come together in the national interest – we have sadly not been able to work out a way of doing this.”
He seemed to blame them for his withdrawal.
“There is a very good chance that I would be successful in the election with Conservative Party members – and that I could indeed be back in Downing Street on Friday,” Johnson said.
“But in the course of the last days I have sadly come to the conclusion that this would simply not be the right thing to do. You can’t govern effectively unless you have a united party in parliament.
In fact, the problem for the mop-headed former leader ousted in July was this: a lot of his fellow Conservative Party lawmakers, alongside so-called Tory grandees and once-friendly tabloid hacks, thout his return to power would spell “disaster.”
Even some of Johnson’s once closest allies were wary. “Go back to the beach,” his former Brexit sidekick David Davis said.
“It is part of Boris Johnson’s weird political genius that he should be considered for an encore at all,” wrote Charles Moore, his old boss and a columnist at the Telegraph, who warned, “True Boris fans will have the courage to tell him to sit this one out.”
If Johnson had returned to power, it would have been as a wounded prime minister.
Johnson just had too much baggage to make a clean start.
People have seen the movie, which ended when, weighed down by scandal, Johnson was forced to quit in July after more than 50 ministers and aides resigned, calling him unfit to lead.
The sequel — or “Johnson 2.0” as the British press have taken to calling it — would not have escaped the plot points of the original.
For starters, he was still facing a perilous investigation in Parliament over whether he lied to lawmakers about covid lockdown parties at 10 Downing Street. This is a serious charge — which could see him censured or worse — and would likely make headlines for months, a constant reminder of his ouster as party leader and prime minister in July.
Liz Truss resigned as prime minister on Oct. 20 after six chaotic weeks in office. As Tory lawmakers ready themselves for a vote on Monday, over who runs their party and therefore who runs Britain, the surrogates for Johnson and his chief rival, the former finance minister Sunak, were duking it out on the morning talk shows, the gossipy Westminster WhatsAp groups and rounds of phone-calling and arm-twisting.
The members — older, wealthier, 97 percent white — tend to veer to the right of the party, and polling shows that they many did favor Johnson over Sunak. But that could have changed.
Once their hero, many say Johnson has let his members down. They might have missed him — what pollsters saw as “Boris nostalgia” — but did they want to watch the next episode?
Johnson was once hugely popular. Today he is hugely divisive, even in his own party. Outside the party? The general public can’t stand him, according to the polls. His popularity has plummeted.
William Hague, a Tory grandee who was once a party leader himself, said that Johnson’s return to power was the “the worst idea I’ve heard of in the 46 years I’ve been a member of the Conservative Party” and would send the party into a “death spiral.”
Steve Baker, the Northern Ireland minister and influential figure among those on the right of the party, said that Johnson would be a “guaranteed disaster” that was “bound to implode.”
Baker said that Johnson isn’t one for “tedious rules” and that now “isn’t the time for Boris and his style.”
The former home secretary Suella Braverman, who is also on the right of the party, came out for Sunak. Writing in the Daily Telegraph, she said that while she has previously backed Johnson “we are in dire straits now. We need unity, stability and efficiency. Rishi is the only candidate that fits the bill.
When endorsing Sunak, lawmakers use words and phrases like “stability” and “competence,” the right man for the economic challenges ahead.
Those endorsing Johnson said “he got the big calls right” and “he’s learned from his mistakes” and “is contrite.”
The majority of Brits say they want a general election, even though one is not required until January 2025. An election can be called early but it would require the support of Conservative lawmakers, which seems unlikely given that the party faces a near wipeout if an election was held today. A petition calling for a general election “to end the chaos of the current government” has quickly amassed over 850,000 signatures.
Nadhim Zahawi, a former top minister in Johnson’s government, said he was backing his old boss again as he “got the big calls right” and argued “Britain needs him back.”
He tweeted: “When I was Chancellor, I saw a preview of what Boris 2.0 would look like. He was contrite & honest about his mistakes. He’d learned from those mistakes how he could run No10 & the country better.
Zahawi is the same man who, just three months ago when he was the second most powerful person in government, called on Johnson, to “go now.”
