David Davis warns a return of Boris Johnson risks a 1997-style defeat for the Conservatives

[ad_1]

Subscribe to the Inside Politics email for a free daily digest of top stories in British politics. Get our free email from Inside Politics

A resurgence of Boris Johnson risks a crushing defeat in the 1997 election for the Conservative Party if his supporters insist he returns to No. 10.

That is the stark warning issued by Britain’s former Brexit secretary, David Davis, as he approaches the anniversary of his dramatic demand that Johnson resign as prime minister, at the height of last year’s ‘Partygate’ scandal.

Writing for The Independent, Davis warned that while the “constant drumbeat” calling for Johnson’s return would fail, it would “undermine” the party’s electoral chances.

“When last year Tory MPs asked me if the next election would be a repeat of 1997,” he says, “I’d say ‘no.'” That was until Boris’ followers began calling for his return. Now I add “it won’t be 1997 unless you do it.”

“When the party in government is actively undermining the prime minister, discrediting his leadership, why should ordinary voters vote for them?”

Polls show Labor now has a 20-point lead over the Conservatives, while one poll last month predicted the party would lose nearly 300 seats – and keep just 69 – in the next election.

The last time an election victory of this magnitude was achieved was in 1997 when Tony Blair’s majority of 179 propelled the Conservative Party into the opposition benches for the next 13 years.

David Davis addresses Boris Johnson during the PMQs with his ‘In the name of God, go’ speech

(Parliament TV)

Davies says that if Johnson’s “idiot dream” continues, history will repeat itself and the party will be in the wilderness for years.

“Boris’ old-timers anticipate Armageddon at the polls in such a way that you would think they wish it were true,” he says.

The constant drumbeat calling for Johnson’s return will fail, but in the process it is denting the party’s chances in the next election.

“It is within the grasp of Sunak’s quietly competent government to win re-election. But if Boris’s foolish dream of a resurrection persists, the same thing will happen again – and we will be out of power for a decade again.”

A year ago this week, Davis stunned Westminster when he stood in the House of Commons and said to Mr Johnson, “In the name of God, go,” and walked past the door of ceremony and his lack of credibility.

His call echoed the words spoken to Neville Chamberlain shortly before he left office, to be replaced by Johnson’s hero, Winston Churchill.

Davies said he expected to make enemies from his interference but found the opposite with a warm response from the crowd to his stance.

In his exclusive article for Today’s Independent, he writes that the party’s position is now “largely the responsibility of Boris’s camp, his heirs and political successors”, adding how the former prime minister presided over a 10 per cent drop in the party’s ratings, before Liz Truss caused equal damage over his tenure. its short term.

Last weekend, The Independent revealed a bitter division among Johnson’s supporters who want him back as party leader, as one faction pressed to wrest power from MPs, who ousted Johnson last summer, while a second camp rejected the idea.

Followers of Boris Johnson believe the former prime minister will be ‘Conservative Harold Wilson – he will serve two distinct terms’

(United Kingdom Parliament)

His supporters predict that Johnson will be “Conservative Harold Wilson – he’ll serve two different terms.” Sources close to Johnson insist he fully supports the government.

But news this week that he is writing a memoir of his time in Downing Street will do little to quell speculation about his future.

Johnson’s friends suggested he might have to cut a deal with Rishi Sunak, and agreed not to challenge his leadership in exchange for a safer seat in the next general election.

Allegations surrounding Barrettgate haunt him ahead of next month’s inquest, and he faced allegations last week that he taunted during a departure party held at Number 10 while Covid lockdown restrictions were still in place that he was attending “the most socially distanced party in the UK right now”.

He also faced allegations that he had taken out an £800,000 line of credit while he was prime minister, backed by a millionaire relative who wanted to run quango and criticized by senior military figures over a planned trip to Ukraine, one of whom accused him of “looking for ‘propaganda’ in a war zone”.

A spokesman for Johnson said: “Boris Johnson fully supports the government. Any suggestion to the contrary is false.”

[ad_2]