According to his close supporter Nadine Dorries, Boris Johnson’s return cannot be totally ruled out.
A return by the former prime minister was ‘not thought about,’ according to the former Cabinet minister, and it was ‘very, exceedingly improbable’.
But she emphasized that this did not imply that it was impossible, cautioning Liz Truss against doing away with ideas from the Conservative Party’s 2019 agenda.
As Tory MPs prepare to parachut Mr. Johnson back into Downing Street if Labour retains its enormous advantage in surveys, Ms. Dorries made her intervention.
With the responsibilities of No. 10 removed, the former premier is claimed to have undergone a “man transformation” and has even taken up golf.
However, backbenchers who fear a Conservative rout in the so-called “Red Wall” are talking of shattering party norms to put him back in office in the spring.
Another depressing survey today gave Labour a 21-point lead, which would be a sizable electoral majority.
Ms Dorries, who was one of Ms Truss’s key supporters until rejecting the drastic policy changes on issues like tax and Channel 4 privatization, said she needed to go back to the program that was responsible for the 2019 landslide.
According to BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, “I don’t think it’s so much about shifting course as it is maybe nuancing the policies and the mandate that she’s pushing forward in a somewhat different manner.”
The truth is that we don’t need a disrupter; we need a unifier immediately after a leadership election and at the beginning of a new government. And during the last two weeks, I believe the new prime minister has probably come to understand it.
If Ms. Truss refuses to return to the 2019 manifesto, what should happen, she was pressed, and she responded: “The simple principle of our democracy and our unwritten constitution is that if you’re going to have a completely fresh mandate, a completely fresh set of policy ideas, and a new prime minister, it would be right to go to the country.”
Liz doesn’t have to carry it out. And I really hope she won’t act in that manner when the polls have us behind by 30 points.
Ms. Dorries, however, had a serious warning for rebels who have been fomenting unrest, like her former colleague Michael Gove.
She said, “I believe those doing it ought to stop.”
We cannot have a leadership election, install a new leader, and then begin planning how to remove that leader.
They must halt, align themselves with her, and provide their support.
“How they do it is by talking to Number 10 and the parliamentary party at the same time,” said Number 10. Liz is not politically suicidal, in my opinion.
When repeatedly questioned about whether Mr. Johnson may become prime minister again, Ms. Dorries said, “I have been in politics for a long time; I don’t rule anything out.” However, I would assert that it is quite implausible.
Winston Churchill, Mr. Johnson’s political idol, also painted, wrote, and sometimes played golf during his ten-year period between leaving the Cabinet in 1929 and entering the War Cabinet.
The change in him is evident, a buddy told the Mail on Sunday. He is reading, writing, playing tennis, drawing, and even trying out golf. He is back to his old self, looks healthier, and is receiving plenty of fresh air.