Tim Montgomerie has big news. And as it happens the site he founded does too.
It is not often I talk about Tim despite him being a friend for many years. One reason for my solid respect is he listens and is always polite to everyone, even those who disagree with him – including Labour’s Lucy Powell during her ghastly ‘little trumpet’ incident on the radio.
Tim, who quite quickly after the Conservatives were unceremoniously turfed from power ‘defected’ to Reform UK was on Times Radio and had what journalists call ‘gear’ to offload.
“The rumbles in the jungle are real – Boris Johnson is on the march”
Coy though he was to say who exactly this information was coming from he was insistent that not only were moves for a Conservative MP in a safe seat to ‘make way’ for the former Prime Minister were at “further advanced stages than some of us had realised up until now” but that Boris was eager to return to the fray.
It is a very unwise Westminster watcher who dismisses Tim and I don’t, but here are some caveats I’d throw into the mix.
Tim isn’t always right (neither am I, for that matter) but it’s still worth noting. Oh I’m sure he has genuinely been told that something is afoot but how real it turns out to be, still remains to be seen. Nonetheless, the current leadership will be alert.
Boris’ hard core supporters have always said his return would be the answer and inevitable. His critics have always said he shamelessly trails his coat but if it actually happened it would be a bad mistake.
Reform UK would love the instability and insecurity such talk might spread in Tory ranks, and Tim now openly supports Reform, though to his credit he is not given to overly Machiavellian PR stunts – and besides Farage has no love for Johnson. To put it mildly.
I myself have lived through, at close quarters, the Tories contemplating Boris returning. It was in the hours after his successor became the shortest lived Prime Minister ever. He didn’t run in the end, and never one to enter a race he’s not confident he’ll win, that suggested he had spotted challenges he wasn’t confident he’d overcome. In the end, at that time, he was no more confident he could command the parliamentary party than Liz Truss was.
But let’s put aside history and ask what members would think if he came back ? Helpfully that’s exactly what our last survey did
The bad news for Boris supporters is those who support him coming back (18.7 per cent) and those who’d strongly support it (20.3 percent) are outweighed by those who’d oppose (16.2 percent) and who’d strongly oppose (30.3 percent) by a margin of 7.5 per cent. However, that 14.5 per cent who are indifferent, either remain indifferent, or are persuadable one way or the other depending on events.
The truth is Boris’ past support in the party is not unlike Labour’s current majority – it was was wide but it was thin. As long as he was winning it was broad and solid, under the inevitable pressure that premiership brings, cracks appeared. To be fair that pressure effects every PM.
However it would not only be wrong, but churlish, to deny he is an exceptional campaigner. Stand out stuff on his best days. So if he rose again, would Boris v2.0 help the Party’s fortunes?
Taken alongside the 14.5 percent who are neutral on the question (maybe more about their feeling of the Party’s position in general than personalities) there’s no clear deciding figure here. Those who think the Conservatives electoral prospects would improve or strongly improve with Boris number 29 per cent, those who think he’d make things worse or greatly worse number 36.4 per cent.
Now before anyone gets excited, you will note we did NOT ask this question around him being leader but returning as an MP. As Kemi Badenoch would no doubt quickly point out the party is already under new leadership, hers. However, does anybody seriously think if Boris were to find a way back in to Parliament, he wouldn’t still be angling and hankering for the ‘ball to come out of the scrum“?