Sir Graham Brady, a senior Conservative, acknowledged that Boris Johnson has amassed enough MPs to challenge Rishi Sunak for the Conservative leadership.
Mr. Johnson abruptly withdrew from the campaign amidst rumors that he lacked the required 100 nominations.
However, Sir Graham, who oversees Tory leadership elections, reported that Mr. Johnson had recently chosen not to run.
In addition, he discussed for the first time his conversation with Liz Truss when she realized she could not continue as prime minister.
Because she had reached the same conclusion as him, he described the meeting as “the simplest and most basic” of the three comparable conversations he had had with Conservative leaders nearing the end of their terms in office.
Sir Graham, as chairman of the influential 1922 backbench committee, must deliver the terrible news to Tory leaders clinging to power that they no longer enjoy the support of their MPs.
Sir Graham announced tonight that he had decided to phone Downing Street to inform Ms. Truss that her position was “untenable” in the wake of “complete mayhem” during one of the final Commons votes of her government.
Confusion about whether the vote on fracking was a vote of confidence in her occurred as Conservative MPs’ support for her doomed government eroded.
The MP for Altrincham and Sale West stated on the program, “I was going for my phone when I received a message from the prime minister requesting a meeting.”
“When I entered her office with her chief of staff, Mark Fullbrook, she asked me, “Is it bad?” I responded, “yeah, it is very nasty.” “.
“She then inquired, “Do you believe it can be retrieved?” And I responded, “I don’t believe so.” She said that neither did she.”
In contrast, he recalled a meeting with Mr. Johnson the night before his resignation announcement in July of this year, when he was “still determined to continue.”
After mulling it over, Mr. Johnson called me early the following morning to say he had changed his mind.
Mr. Johnson was forced to retire following the mass resignation of ministers, including his former chancellor Mr. Sunak, in response to a series of scandals.
After Ms. Truss quit, he attempted a dramatic return by gathering the 100 nominations from Tory MPs necessary to advance to an online vote of party members.
But after returning from a vacation in the Caribbean, he dramatically stated he would not be running, despite having 102 supporters, including a proposer and a seconder.
In a statement, he stated that putting himself forward would be detrimental to party unity.
His decision to withdraw resulted in Mr. Sunak automatically becoming Tory leader, as he was the only MP to reach the ballot round.
The announcement was met with skepticism in Westminster, as only about half of those individuals had publicly declared their support for Mr. Johnson.
However, according to Sir Graham, “two applicants” had attained the required number, and “one of them opted not to submit his nomination.”
Sir Graham emphasized elsewhere in his interview that the committee intended to involve party members in the leadership election while setting a “quite high” nomination threshold to expedite the process.
“We believed it was in the national interest to reach a decision as quickly as possible, but we didn’t want to exclude the potential that members would also have a vote,” he explained.
