Boris DID have the backers, says Brady
BORIS Johnson had enough backers to make the ballot and make the Tory leadership race a battle between himself and Rishi Sunak, 1922 Committee chairman Sir Graham Brady confirmed yesterday.
Last month Mr Johnson, believed to be on the verge of a remarkable political comeback, pulled out of the race shortly before nomination numbers were due, leaving Mr Sunak to run unopposed.
His exit from the race had prompted suggestions that he did not have the 100 MPs on his side which were required to qualify for the next round of voting.
But Sir Graham – whose 1922 Committee oversees the election of party leaders – yesterday said the decision not to stand was entirely Mr Johnson’s.
He told the BBC that two candidates had reached the threshold in October’s leadership contest, but that ‘one of them decided not to then submit his nomination’. When he dropped out, Mr Johnson insisted that he had ‘ cleared the very high hurdle’ of 100 nominations, adding that there was a ‘very good chance’ he could have won.
But he concluded ‘ this is simply not the right time’ to come back to No 10 and that putting himself forward would not be ‘ the right thing to do’ for party unity.
Mr Johnson’s decision effectively set up a coronation for his former chancellor and he later called on his colleagues to offer ‘their full and wholehearted support’ to the new occupant of No 10.
Mr Sunak responded: ‘ Although he has decided not to run for PM again, I truly hope he continues to contribute to public life at home and abroad.’
Sir Graham also revealed that Mr Johnson was much more difficult to convince to step down as prime minister than his successor Liz Truss, who was forced to resign last month after just 44 days in office.
‘When I saw Boris the evening before he announced his resignation, he was at that point still determined to go on and he mulled it over after that and then called me the next morning to say that he’d changed his mind,’ he said.
In contrast, Sir Graham said his call to Miss Truss to tell her that time was up was ‘the easiest and most straightforward’ as she had ‘come to the same conclusion’.
He added: ‘When I went in to see her with her chief of staff Mark Fullbrook, she asked me the question.
‘She said “it’s pretty bad, isn’t it?” To which I replied “yes, it is pretty bad”. She then asked the second question, “do you think it’s retrievable?”. And I said “no, I don’t think it is”. And she replied that she didn’t either.’
GRAHAM Brady, chairman of the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers, confounded the cynics yesterday by confirming that Boris Johnson did indeed have the support of more than 100 MPs in the recent leadership campaign.
This was enough to have challenged Rishi Sunak in the final members’ vote, a contest he would almost certainly have won, propelling him back into Downing Street.
That he chose to sacrifice this for the good of his party and his country was a remarkable act of statesmanship – particularly for a man his enemies say is driven by blind ambition.
This paper deeply regrets that Mr Johnson was never given the chance to realise his one-nation vision. His energy, wit and sheer force of personality are sorely missed in the sea of grey that is today’s political class. Let’s hope it really is hasta la vista – and not goodbye.