Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson had the backing of more than 100 MPs to run in the Conservative Party primaries and try to return to Downing Street just a month and a half after his departure, according to the head of the committee that organized the process, Graham Brady.
The succession of former Prime Minister Liz Truss was resolved in a matter of days, after only the then MP Rishi Sunak, who was proclaimed directly and without the need for additional internal votes.
In the previous days, there was speculation that Johnson, who interrupted a vacation in the Caribbean to return to London, would return to the front line. Although he finally ruled out running again, Brady has revealed to the BBC that he was able to do so, since, like Sunak, he had more than a hundred endorsements – 102, to be precise.
Johnson argued that not running was «the right thing to do» to ensure the unity of the party, after speculation about his return again highlighted the polarization around his figure, at a particularly delicate moment for the ‘Tories’.
In addition to Sunak and Johnson, Penny Mordaunt also tried to make the leap, who minutes before the closing of the collection of endorsements confirmed that she would not run and opened the door to the automatic proclamation of the former Minister of Finance as the new ‘premier’ of the United Kingdom.
