A Boris and Farage dream team? The Tories have lost their minds

It’s been labelled by many as the worst week in Rishi Sunak’s political career – and that is no mean feat. 

The Prime Minister has had plenty go wrong since getting the keys to Number 10 just over a year ago, but the past few days have been especially grim. 

The fallout over the Rwanda policy has the Tory Party ripping themselves apart with Sunak spending today grovelling in breakfast meetings with Conservative MPs in different factions as he bids to get his new bill approved.

But I’ve been stunned to read over the past few days that a familiar spectre is lurking over Rishi Sunak – his former boss, Boris Johnson. 

And he’s not the only big-name Brexiteer threatening the Prime Minister, as Nigel Farage, buoyed by his stay in the I’m A Celebrity jungle, has even been touted as part of a dream team with Johnson. 

The Mail on Sunday quoted one Tory MP saying: ‘We have to buy Farage off. The plan is we get him into the Lords, give him some key brief like that given to David Cameron – maybe even Home Secretary – then go to the country with the dream team.

‘It may not be enough to win, but it would definitely re-energise our base, shake up the debate and give Starmer something to think about.’

And the failed former Prime Minister is reportedly wanted by a number of Conservative MPs who are having second thoughts after making BoJo step down in disgrace.

To those Tories, I’m forced to ask: Have you lost the plot? Do you honestly think the British public are idiots with goldfish memories who won’t remember Johnson’s countless scandals?

You might assume it is just the right-wing factions supporting the Boris comeback, but I spoke to two contacts in the Tory parliamentary group, who are members of the New Conservatives group, mostly made up of ‘Red Wall’ representatives, and both admitted regret over Johnson’s departure.

One told me: ‘I did call for Boris to leave office because I felt he’d lost control and the big cabinet players were jumping ship. It was what was best for the party at the time, but it’s pretty clear now that he [Boris] is the only one who can save us.’

How depressing it must be for the Conservatives that the only plan they can muster to avoid political annihilation is to raise from the dead a leader whose reign ended in infamy and scandal?

A leader, let’s not forget, who isn’t even in Parliament anymore, who could be teaming up with Nigel Farage, who also hasn’t been elected to the House of Commons.

Cast back your mind to last summer, when 57 Ministers resigned under Johnson after a string of wrongdoings made it impossible for his parliamentarians to continue serving under him. 

Wrongdoings like his flippant, occasionally dishonest, approach to the ‘Partygate’ scandal of gatherings that took place in Downing Street during Covid; his fine for breaking lockdown rules; and trying to save the skin of his ally Owen Paterson following a lobbying row.

I watched aghast as crisis after crisis damaged Johnson’s teflon ability to dodge culpability until he found himself drowning under the Chris Pincher scandal, when his deputy chief whip was accused of groping two men at a London club. 

Later, I was amused when he quit Parliament in a huff rather than defend himself against a report that ruled he had misled MPs about Partygate.

Now, I find it farcical that, after already seeing off Liz Truss in less than two months, flip-flopping MPs are even mooting the idea of a return of the man who lost the faith of his party, and the country. 

This is not the same Tory Party I grew up watching with titans such as John Major, Nigel Lawson and Michael Heseltine setting the political agenda and being respected for maintaining the courage of their convictions, even by opponents. 

What I see today is a political party in disarray that is losing its dignity and clutching at straws in a bid to try and stave off a defeat to Keir Starmer’s Labour Party, which seems certain. 

That same Keir Starmer, who, incidentally, is a a man that I have often labelled as weak, lacking charisma and Tory-lite, but who is growing into the role and now looks like a Prime Minister in-waiting against a Tory Party rightly labelled as chaotic, confused and unworthy of being in power. 

And that’s what is really bizarre about these murmurings to welcome back Boris Johnson – nobody truly believes that the former MP is going to turn the dial and lead the Tories to election victory.

His re-appointment, not least if it involves the equally controversial, and equally unelected Nigel Farage, would perhaps save only a few seats in a general election in what is still predicted to be one of the biggest losses in Tory history.

So begging Johnson to come back and sprinkle some of his glitter dust around the party would still see them finish a distant second to Starmer’s Labour. 

I can think of only one word to describe that – bonkers.

It’s a long-shot strategy, replacing Sunak with some kind of Boris and Farage dream team, that would lead to ridicule, not recovery. 

How could Britain take the Tories seriously if they installed their third straight PM without giving the public their chance to have a say?

And Boris may be many things – but he is not a loser, and he is not someone who takes on impossible challenges. 

I don’t think he’d want to come back just to oversee a defeat to Starmer. 

While Sunak oversees the obliteration of his party by torching his authority over the Rwanda bill, I believe the return of Boris, especially if it somehow involves Nigel Farage, would only further show the electorate how out of touch the Tories have become, how detached they are from reality and just how truly spent they are as a political force.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Ross.Mccafferty@metro.co.uk. 

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