(London) Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson never doubts. He missed what would have been a dramatic return to Downing Street but immediately positioned himself for the next election.
Posted at 7:42
“I am ready,” he said on Friday evening, returning in an emergency from a vacation in the Caribbean to try to become prime minister again, only a few weeks after being chased from Downing Street by his government tired of an overflow of scandals and lies.
“I am well placed to secure a Conservative victory in 2024,” he said Sunday evening, after giving up the race, after a weekend where he struggled to obtain the necessary supports and tried in vain to twist the arm of the two other candidates.
In a hugely divided Conservative Party, he said he ultimately secured 102 endorsements.
In announcing his withdrawal, Mr. Johnson explained that he had tried “in the national interest” to reach an agreement with his rivals: Rishi Sunak, his former finance minister who had slammed the door in July and whom he met Saturday evening, and Penny Mordaunt, Minister for Relations with Parliament whom he had ousted from the government in 2019.
They both refused to stand down in his favour, according to The Telegraphand Rishi Sunak now has the wind in its sails to enter Downing Street.
At 8 a.m. Sunday, Boris Johnson, tired by jet lag, but in a suit and tie, still believes in it: he brings together around fifty declared supporters by videoconference to present to them “a vision for the future”, with an approach “to unity”, according to the daily, and the commitment to manage things differently in the future, with a better organization at 10 Downing Street.
“Boris has learned the lessons” from his first term in Downing Street, tweeted one of his most loyal supporters, MP James Duddridge, saying that he will focus “from day one on the needs of the country”.
“I believe I have a lot to offer, but I’m afraid it’s just not the right time […] You cannot govern effectively if you do not have a united party in Parliament,” Boris Johnson explained in the statement explaining his withdrawal from the race.
Without closing the door. “I believe that I am well placed to ensure a conservative victory in 2024” in the legislative elections, he added, aware that he remains popular with the base of the party.
Highly Paying Speeches
In July, after being chased out of Downing Street, he had already cast doubt on a return.
“Hasta la vista baby” he had concluded during his last question session in Parliament on July 20. “Mission largely accomplished, for the moment,” he added.
Recently, however, he seemed to have turned the page on politics: a few days ago, he gave a 30-minute speech to an international audience of insurers in Colorado Springs in the United States, paid 150,000 dollars according to some media. He had just filed the statutes of a company, “The office of Boris Johnson Limited”.
But for Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, 58, a brilliant orator with phenomenal poise, the resignation of Liz Truss, after 44 disastrous days in office, was an opportunity not to be missed, even if according to a YouGov poll, 52% of Britons did not want him back.
The former Brexit herald, who had three tumultuous years in power marked by the Downing Street illegal parties scandal during the anti-COVID-19 lockdown, is still the subject of a parliamentary inquiry into whether he lied to the Parliament in the “partygate”.
Hearings, televised, should begin in the coming weeks. If it is established that he lied, he could be suspended from parliament where he is still an MP.
But like his hero Winston Churchill, of whom he wrote a biography, he still hopes to one day return to Downing Street.