Boris Johnson has said the Conservatives are in a “tough spot” but will “recover” and the “goal is really wide open” for the next general election.
Speaking to GB News, the former prime minister said Kemi Badenoch “just needs time to get going”.
His comments come after a bruising set of local election results for the Conservatives in which they lost all 15 councils they were defending after they found themselves squeezed by both Reform UK and the Liberal Democrats.
In the lead-up to the polls Mrs Badenoch had said her party faced a tough prospect in the contest, given it was defending a high number of seats.
Most were last up for election in 2021, when the Conservative Party under Mr Johnson was experiencing a surge of support following the rollout of the Covid-19 vaccine.
Mr Johnson told GB News: “Our party is in a tough spot, but as Kemi has said, we always knew going into these local elections that it wasn’t going to be brilliant. Everybody knew that was coming.
“Kemi is a very interesting and original mind. I think she’s probably the most original thinker of the current crop of leaders by a long, long way.
“And I think she just needs time to get going. And she has got time.”
He urged the party leader to “keep going” and suggested that the “goal is really wide open” when it comes to the next general election.
“The Tories are going to recover,” Mr Johnson said.
“Of course they will. Because I think in the end, the people of this country are going to be completely fed up by 2028, 2029, whatever it is, with a high tax, high regulation, massively woke government that is taking us in completely the wrong direction.
“And so the goal is really wide open.”
Last week Mrs Badenoch apologised to defeated councillors and conceded the Tories still had “a big job to do to rebuild trust with the public”.
“That’s the job the Conservative Party has given me and I am going to make sure that we get ourselves back to the place where we are seen as the credible alternative to Labour,” she said.
