Boris Johnson would be ‘bound to implode,’ if he returns to No 10
Penny Mordaunt has rejected an appeal from Boris Johnson to drop out of the Tory leadership race to replace Liz Truss in No 10 and back him instead, sources close to the Commons leader have claimed.
Despite being viewed as the least likely to hit the necessary threshold of 100 Tory MP nominations to make it onto Monday’s ballot, with 25 public declarations, Ms Mordaunt vowed to remain in the race, and is claimed to have warned the ex-PM that her backers would largely switch to his rival Rishi Sunak were she to drop out.
The former chancellor was closing in on the figure of 179 nominations representing half the parliamentary party as he delivered a further blow to Mr Johnson’s hopes of re-entering Downing Street, with endorsements from two more influential Tories on the party’s right wing, Suella Braverman and Steve Baker.
Minutes later, however, foreign secretary James Cleverly announced he would be backing Mr Johnson, claiming the former prime minister has “learned lessons from his time in No 10”.
