London: Boris Johnson is a bit like a boulder, according to an ally supporting him in his extraordinary push to become British prime minister just over a month after he left 10 Downing Street.
It is not meant as a disparaging comment, but rather an insight into the former prime minister’s extraordinary ability to fix people’s attention, even when he is not overtly doing much at all.
Boris Johnson is mounting a push to return to 10 Downing Street.Credit:AP
“It’s the latency of the boulder on a precipice. It doesn’t move, but you’re looking at it. You’ve got to keep your eye on it all the time,” said the ally.
It is this “latent power” that enabled him to send Westminster into a frenzy about his intentions to join the Conservative leadership race when Liz Truss resigned – even though he was thousands of kilometres away, sunning himself on a family holiday in the Dominican Republic.
“Nobody else can sit on a beach looking at their toes, and cause the whole political world to run around,” the ally said. “He doesn’t have to organise the theatre. The theatre happens around him.”
Of course, Johnson has not been quite as passive as that boulder. He has stoked the fire of his re-election campaign, first by sending appreciative messages to those calling for him to stand, then by phoning MPs to seek their backing, and finally by dramatically jetting back to the UK.
The face of former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on an advertising hoarding at Westminster tube station in London, on October 21, 2022.Credit:AP
Now his camp believes it can engineer an astonishing return to Downing Street by mobilising grassroots Tories to help get him over the golden line of 100 MP nominations.
An old ally and friend of Johnson confirmed that he had been “doing the sums” in the Dominican Republic. “This is going to be very quick, very ruthless,” they said.
The pitch to doubtful MPs is simple: Johnson still has a mandate from the 2019 election, and he alone can save the Tories from electoral wipeout.
Beyond his band of parliamentary supporters, Johnson has an even more formidable weapon – an army of keyboard warriors in the Tory base.
His defenestration back in July prompted a vigorous grassroots campaign to get his name on the ballot for the contest eventually won by Truss. A petition organised by the Lord Cruddas and the Conservative Post website got thousands of signatures.
His camp have sought to harness this infrastructure to put pressure on MPs to get him to 100 nominations.
A “Back Boris” campaign group on WhatsApp has been set up to provide a link between the MPs and the activists. One member of the group told The London Telegraph: “I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s got organisations in every constituency, region and nationally.”
Claire Bullivant, the founder and editor of ConservativePost, claims to have contact details for about 65,000 party supporters, of which at least 10,000 are confirmed members, giving the website “the largest database of members outside of Conservative Campaign Headquarters (CCHQ)”.
“The MPs might be hating us,” she said. “But they are just spamming them with emails saying, ‘support Boris, support Boris’.”
The website has made it easy for diehard supporters to lobby their MP too. “We’ve given them letters that they can send, all they have to do is press click and it zips off,” she added.
A Tory peer and ally of the former prime minister claimed this pressure could prove crucial. “I personally think that if MPs are in their constituencies over the weekend, they’ll find a lot of Anyone But Sunak Syndrome and more enthusiasm for Boris than they might have expected.”
On Friday, the campaign was buoyed by a string of cabinet endorsements, and on Saturday Priti Patel, the former home secretary, added her backing.
However, endorsements remain well below those of Sunak, with the pace of public nominations also appearing to slacken yesterday.
If Johnson does scrape through, he will feel confident in facing Sunak in a vote of members. But if he only carries a minority of MPs, he will almost certainly face calls to step aside rather than risk another occupant of No.10 presiding over an ungovernable parliamentary party.
His allies accept this will be a challenge, but insist it is manageable.
One confidante said: “Ninety per cent of the party is absolutely fine, but there is an element – and I don’t think this is particularly a Boris problem, it’s a Rishi problem as well – who’ve got very entrenched views. The party has got to be quite ruthless about them.”
Another ally said the former prime minister had to “come back and impose some discipline”. They said that if a small number of MPs are expelled from the party – or even defect to Labour – it would be a price worth paying in the long run.
The other preoccupation is how he can draw a line under his chaotic exit from No 10. One former adviser said: “His great challenge will be how he explains he’s not going to repeat those errors. If he does that, that will reassure a lot of people.”
If he can manage it, the great Johnsonian boulder could soon be rolling its way through British politics again.
One Tory MP who has publicly endorsed Johnson said the campaign to secure him the nominations has been fluid.
“Would you expect anything to do with Boris to be that structured? It’s mainly done on WhatsApp,” they said.
Nigel Adams – an MP who has supported Mr Johnson’s leadership bids since 2016 – is coordinating the campaign. Ross Kempsell and David Canzini, two former senior aides, are also helping run the show.
Nadine Dorries, his most outspoken disciple, is “providing encouragement in the way that only Nadine can do”.
So far, the campaign has focused on getting Johnson the numbers. “He doesn’t want to be humiliated,” the MP said. “He doesn’t want to be in the situation that he was when Michael Gove abandoned him [in 2016].”
Another backer agreed that given Johnson was “knifed” by his MPs when he was forced out of Number 10, “he does want to see that support before he sticks his neck over the parapet again”. “He needs to be shown some love,” they added.
The Telegraph, London
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