Boris Johnson arrived home from his holidays in the Dominican Republic on Saturday morning in an effort to retake the great prize and standard he forfeited only eight weeks ago.
News channels spent an age on Saturday showing live shots of the British Airways jet touching down at Gatwick Airport shortly after ten. But if his campaign team wanted to portray it as a triumphal return, or hoped that it would encourage more MPs to back him publicly, they were guilty of wishful thinking.
Like all leadership contests, this one boils down to a numbers game. And as Saturday afternoon wore on, his main rival, Rishi Sunak, continued to collect endorsements at an impressive rate. Johnsons’ trickled in slowly by contrast.
By 6pm, 122 MPs had publicly backed Sunak, 22 over the number required to become a valid candidate. A number of very senior and respected MPs threw their weight behind him on Saturday, including former Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, International Trade Minister Kemi Badenoch (a rising star in the party), Tom Tugendhat (who, like Badenoch, ran a very effective campaign in the leadership race in the summer) and party grandee David Davis.
[ Sunak reaches support threshold of 100 MPs as Johnson arrives back in UKOpens in new window ]
Kemi Badenoch was considering another run at the leadership herself, but with the entry threshold at 100, it would have been too high a bar for her.
In her statement endorsing him, she said: “Rishi was constantly worried about inflation long before others flagged it as a looming issue. I saw him rein in unnecessary, wasteful spending.
“His fiscal conservatism meant saying no to many Cabinet colleagues, which, I suspect, is the reason a large number were opposed to his becoming PM. Right now, being able to say no is what we need.”
A little later, she said in a tweet: “I’m a fan of Boris but his return, given all that’s happened, would not bring people together. We all need to set aside our differences and work for the greater good.”
‘Saying No’ has become an important trope for Sunak’s backers. They are trading on his prediction that Liz Truss’s economic policies would lead to disaster. He was right. They did.
Sunak’s supporters also say that despite Johnson’s attributes as a political operator, it would be wrong at this critical moment for Britain — with its economy in free fall — to back a person who would not have the discipline or the knowledge to impose tough fiscal policies. Johnson, they say, is a better leader for a party in opposition — in other words, a glorified warm-up man to rally the troops. It’s the wrong time for him to return, many have said.
The other big negative Sunak’s supporters have been emphasising is the fact that a Westminster privileges committee is still investigating if Johnson misled parliament over the parties that were held in Downing Street during lockdown. It could lead to the unedifying prospect of him being suspended, or even losing his seat while serving as Prime Minister.
“We’d be back in the sort of Groundhog Day of Partygate. We’ve got to have the country and the Government moving forward,” Dominic Raab said on Times Radio on Saturday.
So where does Johnson now stand in terms of endorsements? His supporters claim that he has 100 in the bag but as of Saturday evening, there are only 57 publicly declared. That said, there are a total of 357 Tory MPs, so he still has a good chance of reaching the 100 mark by Monday afternoon.
The evidence on Saturday, though, was that it has been hard work for his campaign team to get MPs to publicly back the former prime minister.
“If Boris Johnson has 100 in the bag, why is his campaign putting out pictures of him begging for votes?” asked MP, Sir Robert Syms, in a tweet. “Just asking for a friend,” he added caustically.
Johnson has the backing of six senior ministers including the current Northern Ireland Secretary, Chris Heaton-Harris. His long-time ally Priti Patel also rowed in behind him on Saturday.
As of now, it looks like Sunak could get 200 MPs to publicly back him, with Johnson capable of getting a little over 100. The only declared candidate, Penny Mordaunt, has stalled on about 23 public endorsements and does not look like she will be able to bridge the gap. Her team engaged in an intense social media campaign on Saturday, highlighting her credentials as the only leader who could unify the party. However, unless there is a large turnaround in her fortunes over the next day, she will not make it to the starting line.
If Johnson does reach the 100 mark, it will mean that the issue can be put to the party membership of 150,000. Last time round, they reversed the choice of the MPs, putting Liz Truss in ahead of Sunak. Could it happen again?
Johnson has always been popular with the grassroots, but does he still have residual value with the membership? Will the membership conclude the rules of the game have changed in the last eight weeks? Will the party be in a position to persuade Johnson to withdraw in the interest of the party?
All of those questions will be played out between now and 2pm on Monday.