Why Johnson’s possible return is so momentous

It is hard to exaggerate how big a moment this is for the Conservative Party, and for Boris Johnson.

If he chooses to run to be leader and PM, he may well win - thanks to his popularity among Tory members (though considerably fewer than half Tory MPs are thought to want him back in No10).

His virtue, according to his fans, is that he is what they call a “winner”.

But although he is an impressive campaigner, in the 2019 election campaign, circumstance endowed him with three advantages that have gone: the pledge to “get Brexit done”; an opposition leader in Corbyn deeply unpopular with some former Labour voters; and a public sector balance sheet which made it possible to do what he loves doing, that is promising lots of public spending.

He has no such endowment now, so any campaign led by him henceforth would be about his qualities and his mixed record.

One question for Tory MPs is whether his visceral dislike of belt tightening makes him an appropriate steward of the economy after his choice as successor Truss wrecked the public finances, and when there remains a risk of a fiscally lethal run on UK government bonds.

But perhaps the biggest question for Boris Johnson, for Tory MPs and Tory members is whether he is remotely capable of uniting his party.

When he was forced from office in July, some 60 members of his government and at least half his MPs thought he was too incompetent and dishonest to continue leading them.

Most have not changed their minds. His six weeks in the political wilderness would hardly count as biblical penance.

And then, in the words of Dominic Raab - his ex foreign secretary who wants Sunak to be PM - there is the prospect of the commons privileges committee taking public evidence day after day into whether he wilfully lied to MPs that there were no illegal parties in Downing Street.

As Raab points out, this would be a significant distraction for a prime minister who faces economic crisis at home and serious security threats from Russia and elsewhere.

Perhaps the best that can be said for Johnson 2.0 is that it will never be boring for journalists like me.

But should the Tory Party choose a leader where the risk is high of Tory MPs refusing to work for him and some could even resign the Tory whip?

One former Tory foreign secretary William Hague warns of a possible “death spiral for his party if Johnson returns.

Another ex foreign secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind writes in the Times today he is “saddened and disturbed” that Johnson’s supporters are putting what they see as “party interest” before “public interest”.

This is the nub.

Is it in the interests of a faction-riven Tory party to choose as its leader someone who only recently sacrificed his moral authority to insist on loyalty from colleagues?

What a moment for Johnson and his party.

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