Johnson previously enjoyed great popularity until losing credibility in the final months of his tenure.
Gleb Garanich | Portal
LONDON – Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will not run in the leadership contest to replace outgoing leader Liz Truss.
Despite being ousted from office just three months ago, some Conservative MPs had backed Johnson for the top job and he was reportedly telling his allies in recent days that he was officially joining the contest.
But in a statement late Sunday, Johnson said it was “just not the right time”. He added that he “cleared the very high hurdle of 102 nominations” to enter the final stages of the competition. Around 60 lawmakers had publicly endorsed the ex-PM, but there were question marks over how many nominations he had received.
In his statement, Johnson mentioned his two rivals, Rishi Sunak and Penny Mordaunt, both of whom have officially entered the competition.
“And while I’ve reached out to both Rishi and Penny — hoping we could come together in the national interest — unfortunately we couldn’t find a way to do it,” Johnson said.
Sunak the favorite
Former Treasury Secretary Sunak is now the hottest favorite as Britain’s next leader with around 140 nominations so far.
On Saturday, amid media frenzy, Johnson flew back from a vacation to the Caribbean he would throw his hat in the ring. Johnson is believed to still be popular among the broader Conservative Party’s grassroots base, although many Tory MPs are strongly opposed to returning.
Former culture secretary and close Johnson ally Nadine Dorries tweeted on Thursday that he was the only MP with “a mandate from party members and the British public” after winning the 2019 general election.
“There is a very good chance I would be successful in the election with Conservative Party members – and that I could actually be back in Downing Street on Friday. But over the last few days I’ve sadly come to the conclusion that this just wouldn’t be the right thing to do. You cannot govern effectively unless you have a unified party in Parliament,” Johnson said in the statement.
Johnson previously enjoyed a high level of popularity until he lost credibility in the final months of his tenure as prime minister amid a political scandal surrounding Covid-19 rule-breaking and his ties to disgraced MP Chris Pincher.
In his farewell speech, he alluded to a future return to office with the words: “Hasta la vista, baby” or “see you later”.
Britain’s Prime Minister Liz Truss resigned on Thursday, ending a brief 44-day tenure marred by “mini-budget” chaos, economic turmoil and weeks of political infighting.
This is how the competition works
Truss’s successor will again be decided by a Conservative Party leadership contest drawn from a shortlist of candidates. This time, however, the process has been sped up to a week as the party tries to salvage its credibility and calm markets.
Candidates have until 2pm London time on Monday to win the support of 100 MPs and take part in the party leader election.
The threshold is particularly high as the party consists of 357 MPs and each can only vote for one candidate. This limits the number of possible competitors to three.
If just one candidate gets the required 100 votes, they automatically win the race and become Britain’s next Prime Minister. If two or more candidates reach 100 nominations, the competition will continue on Monday afternoon and evening with indicative votes.
Should the trial stretch beyond Monday, Conservative Party members – around 200,000 people, representing 0.3% of the UK population – have until Friday 11am to vote for their preferred candidate in an online poll .