Can Boris Johnson save Rishi Sunak?

Boris Johnson could be drafted in to help save the Conservatives from annihilation at the general election – and prepare for a possible return to politics should the party be wiped out.

Johnson has largely stayed out of the political limelight since he was ousted from power in the summer of 2022. Since then, however, his party's fortunes have nosedived, and a feeling is growing that the man who won the Tories a huge majority in 2019 is the only person who can save them this time.

Tory fears of a mass exodus of voters across the so-called "red wall" in the north of England has been heightened by the defection of former party deputy chair Lee Anderson to a surging Reform UK party. 

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

"There are many in the party who don't think we have a hope in hell of winning unless Boris comes back," one backbencher told The Telegraph. "Of course there are some who can't forgive him for Partygate but we're running out of better ideas."

What did the commentators say?

In the wake of the Partygate scandal, the notion of "bringing back Boris" appeared "complete folly", said Camilla Tominey in The Telegraph. "Yet the resurgence of Donald Trump as the Republican nominee for US president, combined with the Tories this week falling to their lowest level of poll support in almost 50 years, have increased the likelihood of a Cincinnatus-style comeback." Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus was the Roman statesman recalled as dictator referenced by Johnson in his outgoing speech as PM.

A comeback has been made more likely by a significant "thawing" of relations between Johnson and Rishi Sunak over the past six months, said The Times's political editor Steven Swinford. Tominey also reported that "sources familiar with the former prime minister's thinking" had revealed last month the former PM would welcome a personal telephone call from Sunak to ask for his help campaigning in the general election.

While undoubtedly a divisive figure nationally, Johnson still retains widespread support among the Tory grassroots and those who voted for the party for the first time in 2019. In a focus group reported by The Telegraph in the red wall seat of Wellingborough ahead of February's by-election, four out of seven participants pinpointed Johnson's departure and subsequent Tory infighting as the reason why they had given up on the party.

A look at the latest polls and the distribution of target seats shows that "the difference between losing the next election and annihilation lies in great measure in getting former Conservative voters to show up on election day", said Anne McElvoy on the i news site. In this Johnson could be decisive and would "probably make a difference", agreed one veteran Tory backbencher.

With Sunak failing to move the dial, some in the party are even "muttering about some sort of complex putsch" in which Johnson is reinstalled as leader before the election, said the Mail on Sunday in an editorial. This would most likely backfire, said the paper, but a "more sensible course of action which would tend to unite rather than split the Tories" would be for Sunak to "make full use of this powerful asset in the developing campaign".

Johnson has a "unique power to charm and captivate a national audience, and there is no point in Sunak or any other leading Conservative being envious of this", the Mail on Sunday added. But "given the many egos and fractured bromances in this story, the only way Johnson is likely to resurface is if he sees personal gain in doing so", said McElvoy.

What next?

While any involvement in the campaign is likely to start off informally – he could "visit marginal constituencies, make speeches and appear on leaflets", said The Times – there have been suggestions that Johnson could make a comeback as an MP before the election or be parachuted into a safe seat after.

HuffPost said that Johnson's hopes of a political comeback have been "dealt a major blow" by the Tory candidate in his former seat of Henley insisting in an LBC interview that she would not make way for him. 

But the "real field of play for Johnson", said McElvoy, "is the immediate period after the likely election rout". Then, a "rump party, with a bunch of ambitious contenders on the right, will assess the Reform Party's performance – and the possible appeal of a Farage-Johnson dream team", she said. 

In practice, this would most likely be a "fissile combination", but "something profound is likely to shift in the Conservative Party – and Johnson has always seen moments of instability as an opportunity".