Members campaign to get Johnson back on the ballot

MORE than 2,000 Conservative members have written to the party chairman to demand a vote on whether Boris Johnson should carry on as leader.

The party members want the Prime Minister’s name to be added to the ballot when 160,000 members vote for a new leader next month.

The members are backing a petition organised by Lord Cruddas of Shoreditch, the Tory donor, and David Campbell-bannerman, the former MEP.

The petition is the first stage of a campaign by members to reinstate Mr Johnson, with further plans to pressure association chairmen to take action over his removal from the leadership.

The petition, being circulated on the Conservative Post website and drafted as a letter to Andrew Stephenson, who replaced Oliver Dowden as party chairman, claims morale is low among the membership. It says: “Back in 2019, Boris Johnston was elected by the membership to be our new leader.

“Now, that choice has been changed without referral to the people that elected him, the loyal and hard-working membership of the Conservative party.

I accept that there are current rules in place that we will have a choice between the final two candidates but that is not the point because our first choice has been removed without our involvement.

“You cannot disenfranchise the membership… as this is open to abuse by the parliamentary party who may have vested interest reasons and grievances to settle against our leader, which has been the case with the current process.”

The petition concludes: “I demand Boris Johnson be added to the ballot as an option for the members to vote upon in the forthcoming election.”

Lord Cruddas said that the party’s board could step in to add Mr Johnson’s name to the ballot under Section 17 of the Conservative constitution.

“The membership wants the option of voting for Boris on the final ballot,” he said. “We think it is only fair because Boris was the members’ choice back in 2019 and he has been constructively removed by the parliamentary party without referral to the membership.”

A Conservative spokesman said that the rules of the contest had been agreed by the 1922 Committee board after Mr Johnson said he was standing down as leader.