Boris Johnson intervened over a possible UK-EU deal on the contentious Northern Ireland Protocol over the weekend. This, following months of speculation about the possibility of a comeback for the former prime minister, has sent the rumour mill into overdrive—Mr. Johnson’s sights are now widely agreed to be set on Number 10.
A source close to the figure told The Sunday Telegraph that “his general thinking is that it would be a great mistake to drop the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill.” The legislation, passed while Mr. Johnson was in office, would allow the UK government to tear up parts of the Protocol considered damaging to Northern Ireland. Recent reports have, however, suggested this could be shelved to make way for a deal; one which grants the European Court of Justice the role of ultimate arbiter on Northern Ireland-based issues relating to EU law. The former prime minister’s view is a thorn in the side of Rishi Sunak’s administration, having featured prominently in the British press since its Sunday Telegraph splash.
His intervention, though, has less to do with Brexit than with his attempted return to office, according to George Osbourne, who served as chancellor under David Cameron in the early-to-mid 2010s. It would be a mistake, he said, “to think that Boris Johnson is interested in the issues,” adding that the former Tory leader is simply “interested in becoming prime minister again.” Little progress was made on the Protocol during Mr. Johnson’s time in Number 10 Downing Street, and his commitment to bringing the UK out of the EU has always been considered shaky at best.
Ben Habib, the former Brexit Party MEP, agreed that the Tory figure’s intentions were “murky.” He described Mr. Johnson, who “created the Protocol” and did “nothing” to “fix his mess,” as a “dark figure,” telling The European Conservative: “No one knows his motives.”
This does not mean that Mr. Johnson’s comments have gone down badly, with one Tory MP publicly sharing the view that the Protocol bill is a “clean solution” to the Brexit treaty and the influential pro-Brexit Bruges Group think tank describing the intervention as “timely.” Nile Gardiner, a former aide to Margaret Thatcher and long-time supporter of Mr. Johnson, went further, insisting that “it will soon be time for Boris Johnson to return as PM.”
Even before the intervention went public, David Bannerman, a one-time Conservative Party representative in the European Parliament, said Mr. Sunak’s reported deal with the EU was a “huge boost to the prospect of a Boris return later this year.”
All the while, movements are appearing to be made towards the fulfilment of Mr. Johnson’s remark over the summer in his final Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs): “Hasta la vista, baby.” In January, it was revealed that Johnson received a donation of £1 million from Thai-based British businessman Christopher Harborne. The Guardian described this as “one of the biggest [donations] recorded to an individual UK politician rather than a party,” adding that it increased “speculation that Johnson could be planning some sort of comeback.” Mr. Johnson also earned close to another million pounds through a book deal and speaking engagements in just over six weeks. All this while, as the Financial Times puts it, “we see the beginnings of Boris Johnson making another tilt at the Conservative leadership.”
The Labour party has criticised other “alleged murky financial arrangements,” while one Tory backbencher told The Independent that these “should help kill off any chance he has of coming back.” LBC radio presenter Iain Dale is, however, unsure that it will. He wrote in The Daily Telegraph:
I do not advocate the return of Boris. I do not want it. In some ways I think he would be mad to come back and the Tory party would be even madder to facilitate it, but it’s impossible to ignore the fact that there is a real pathway to it happening.
With Rishi Sunak’s own tenure being far from popular, it is likely that Britons have not heard the last from Mr. Johnson yet.
