Senior Tories are attempting to broker a face-to-face meeting between Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak in a bid to end the bloodletting engulfing the party, as the ex-Prime Minister concluded his stay in the Dominican Republic and took an overnight flight back to London in the race for the keys to No 10.
Boris Johnson is understood to be keen to meet his estranged former chancellor in the expectancy of burying the hatchet and hammering out a deal to govern together.
With the battle to succeed Liz Truss quickly becoming a two-horse race, a deal between the pair could end the contest immediately and may present the best hope of healing the bitter divisions in Tory ranks.
A senior Tory source said that it was something that had to be tried. The party as it stood was fractured, and it was incumbent on the two greatest talents in the party to see if it could be healed. They added that the question the Conservative Party needed to ask itself is whether it wants to win another General Election and that if it did, then they need to come together now.
A source close to bookies’ favourite Rishi Sunak played down the possibility of peace talks, saying that although he was keen to talk to all colleagues, there were no plans for a meeting with Boris Johnson, but another senior Tory said there were indications that both camps were eager to mend the rift that otherwise threatens to undermine whoever succeeds Liz Truss. They said that on balance, they believed a meeting would happen.
It comes as Sky News photographed the ex-Prime Minister with his wife Carrie Johnson on an overnight British Airways flight back from the Dominican Republic with their children and said the MP received one or two boos as he boarded.
Influential Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen, who was a key Rishi Sunak backer in the last leadership race, said he now wants to see Boris Johnson as Prime Minister with Rishi Sunak alongside him again as chancellor.
Both men enjoyed a surge in support that threatened to make it impossible for rival contenders to get enough nominations to get on the ballot paper.
In a significant intervention, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said he was setting aside his own leadership chances, and suggested he would support Boris Johnson. He said it was necessary to think about who could win the next election for the Conservatives.
Of course, there are still a few cap doffers who will still back Boris Johnson, but most Brits are tired of him, even though Boris has proven himself to be a liar and a conman, yet here are all these people with amnesia.
However, if we do have to put up with Boris Johnson yet again, then he and Rishi Sunak should think about the country, and the hard-working people in Britain, and they should put their differences aside and work together and sort out this enormous mess that we’re in.
The problem is they don’t care about this country or the people. They care about themselves, the super-rich, and how much money they can make, that should be pretty evident by now, and Boris Johnson is ‘Churchillian’ and Rishi Sunak is ‘Reptilian’.
Although Churchill didn’t father unwanted children, and then abandon them as Boris Johnson did, and Churchill didn’t tell lie after lie trying to mislead the public, Boris did, and now you’ll have Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak, one a bumbling egomaniac and the other a sociopath, both bathing in their glory.
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