Boris DID have 100 votes needed to challenge Rishi
BORIS Johnson had enough MPs backing him to mount a challenge against Rishi Sunak for the Conservative leadership, senior Tory Sir Graham Brady has confirmed.
Mr Johnson dramatically pulled out of the race with less than 24 hours to go amid speculation he did not have the 100 nominations he needed to stand.
He claimed to have had 102 backers, which some disputed.
But he said putting himself forward would not be “the right thing to do” for party unity.
Now Sir Graham, chairman of the powerful backbench 1922 Committee which runs Tory leadership contests, has said the former Prime Minister had simply decided not to stand.
Sir Graham said “two candidates” had reached the threshold, and “one of them decided not to then submit his nomination”. He also spoke about his meeting with Liz Truss when she realised she could not go on as PM.
The chat was “the easiest and most straightforward” of the three similar conversations he has held with leaders – David Cameron, Theresa May and Mr Johnson – facing the end of their time in power.
As chairman, it falls to Sir Graham to deliver the bad news to Tory leaders when they no longer command the support of MPs. In an interview with BBC North West Tonight, Sir Graham said he had decided to call Downing Street to tell Ms Truss her position was “unsustainable”. It followed confusion over whether a vote on fracking was a confidence vote in her.
He said: “I was reaching for my phone when I got a message saying the Prime Minister had asked to see me. She asked me: ‘It’s pretty bad, isn’t it?’ To which I replied ‘yes, it is’. She asked the second question, ‘Do you think it’s retrievable?’ I said: ‘No, I don’t think it is.’ And she replied that she didn’t either.”
By contrast, he recalled meeting Mr Johnson the night before he announced his resignation in July, when he was “still determined to go on”. Sir Graham added: “He mulled it over after that, and called me early the next morning to say that he’d changed his mind.”