Will Boris Johnson attempt to make a comeback as world king?

To paraphrase Gerry Adams on the Provisional IRA: “He hasn’t gone away you know”. Indeed, according to present assumptions, and although he may be taking his remaining duties with the lightness associated with the traditional holiday season, Boris Johnson will still be Prime Minister of the UK until September 6th or 7th. After that, his friends say, he will remain an ornament of our political system as Conservative MP for Uxbridge at least until the next General Election. 

After the two enjoyed an intimate lunch, Lord Cruddas told the Daily Telegraph, that Johnson still plans to lead the Tories into the next general election. He could not say how this could happen although he and the paper duly set up a so-far unsuccessful Bring-back-Boris campaign. They failed to get the rules changed to allow Johnson, as the party’s out-going resignee, to be on the final ballot in the current leadership contest to replace him. 

Johnson remains a vigorous and ambitious seeker of public reward and acclaim. His prime ministerial farewells in Downing Street and the Commons notably did not follow the usual precedent of admitting that his career was done for. He complained he was the victim of herd instinct to the media and told MPs, in a sub-par speech: “Hasta la vista, er, Baby”. Everybody overlooked that after listening down the line to a Johnson conference speech Arnold Schwartzenegger had commented: “that guy’s all over the place”. Nobody missed that the Terminator-actor’s other best known quote is “I’ll be back.”

Now that Donald Trump is once again the clear front runner to be the next Republican nominee for the White House in spite of losing elections, bad behaviour and numerous legal problems, it is worth asking if a comeback could happen here to another creature of this celebrity age. 

In a brilliant column, the maverick Toryish journalist, Peter Oborne, sketched out one quick way back for Johnson. He remains the darling of this year’s Conservative conference. The new leader fails to inspire. Local and by-elections still go badly. Tory MPs vote no confidence in Truss or Sunak. Still an MP, Johnson stands and wins re-election as leader. 

William Hague, who is the very model of decency in a former Conservative party leader, drew lugubriously on his party’s history. Johnson “is going to be Heath without jokes added in, and Thatcher with consistency taken out”, Hague wrote in The Times, “all rolled into a bundle of resentment, denial, attention seeking and attempted vindication that will be a permanent nightmare for the next Prime Minister.”

Both these visions of Johnson’s future are predicated on him remaining an MP. Others argue that his evident urgent need for cash may force him to step down as an MP. David Cameron and Tony Blair, for example, chose not to remain subject to the strictures of the declaration of members’ interests and the ministerial code. 

Besides, the prospects for Johnson or any other Conservative holding on to his outer London seat at an election are not promising. Johnson’s number one fan in the cabinet, Nadine Dorries, has intimated that she intends to accept the peerage he will offer her by October. Sources have denied any chance of a Johnson chicken run to her vacated “safe Conservative” seat in Mid-Bedfordshire. We shall see. Johnson has so far represented two different constituencies. Winston Churchill was MP for five in a long career which included periods outside parliament.

The parliamentary standards and privileges committee into whether Johnson lied to MPs is also bearing down on him. In an impressively contradictory trilogy of comments during her campaign, Liz Truss, the most likely next Prime Minister, has said she doesn’t think Johnson should have resigned over his misbehaviour, although she would not have him in her Cabinet, she would also vote against punishing him if he is censured by the committee. It is unlikely that Sunak or the majority of MPs would be so forgiving. If suspended from the Commons, Johnson could face a by-election. Similar circumstances did not favour either Owen Paterson or the Conservatives in his constituency.

Quitting the Commons now would take the sting out of the inquiry and sidestep any awkward inquiries about how much Lord Bamford paid for the Johnson’s recent wedding party or how his recent delayed honeymoon was financed.

There are many generous estimates as to how much Johnson could earn as a free agent. He may turn out to be more of a Piers Morgan in this lucrative respect than a Tony Blair. Prestigious international appointments are not on the cards. Brexit has shut the door for the UK on many of them. Johnson has never been applauded in a joint session of the US Congress.  His short and meagre track record as a global statesman led to the swift squashing of the boosterish suggestion that he should become the next Secretary General of NATO. Only Ukraine would entertain the idea and the country is not a NATO member. 

The unserious foreign secretary who said “f*** business” may not have undying appeal in the advisory boardroom or on the lucrative international conference circuit, though his talents will ensure him some decent bookings as a comedy turn. His wealthy friends may also continue to sub him but they will probably want him to go on reflecting some glamour as well. 

All of which points to Johnson having to rely on his old occupations of journalism, writing and media appearances. The Telegraph, Mail and Express groups have all lavished praise on him. It is unspoken that he views the mass of peerages he plans to hand out as decent quid pro quos. 

These activities in turn will keep him active in the world of politics, especially when so many of his party, including Truss, seem prepared to give him houseroom either because they feel he has been hard done by or because they are afraid of him. If Rishi Sunak fails to become the next leader, that fear will only increase. In the United States, similar fear of the consequences of opposing the fallen leader within their own party has been the most powerful expediter of Donald Trump’s comeback. 

Gladstone, Churchill and Wilson all made comebacks as Prime Minister but to do so they all had to be MPs. It may be expedient for Johnson to leave the Commons now, but he will need to return as an MP  if he’s really serious about attempting a comeback as UK “world king”. Of course, unlike those three, Johnson just wants to be top and the centre of attention. He has demonstrated neither the appetite not the aptitude to govern the nation constructively. It may be that it will all be too much hard work for him to last in the front line of politics – thus far his other career highlights have tended to be short lived. 

That won’t stop him making a nuisance of himself as Hague predicted. Those who wish to be sure that they have killed not scotched Johnson’s political career would seem to have two options. Either to secure an office-debarring criminal conviction against him, for which, unlike with his friend Trump, there seem to be no grounds at present. Or they should do what they should have done with Farage, and ensure that he is kicked upstairs now to the House of Lords, that dustbin of obsolescence.