Boris Johnson and the Tories should heed David Davis’s warning

Editorial: Before long, many of the former PM’s misfortunes and misjudgements will be played out once again in public

Perhaps Johnson will one day end up as a lively leader of the Conservative opposition (UK parliament)

Though it feels much longer ago, it is now a year since David Davis rose to his feet on the furthest backbench of the House of Commons, peered down at Boris Johnson and quoted the ageless words of Oliver Cromwell to an earlier superannuated parliament: “You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go.” Historians noted that the same phrase had been uttered by another rebellious but conscientious Tory backbencher, Leo Amery, to Neville Chamberlain during Britain’s darkest hour in 1940. As with Cromwell and Amery before him, Mr Davis’s intervention helped hasten political change.

Twelve months on, then, and after much turbulence, Mr Johnson is gone. Yet unlike Cromwell’s 17th-century parliamentary offal or the luckless Chamberlain, Mr Johnson and his acolytes have not gone quietly into that good night. The campaign to restore Mr Johnson began literally at the moment of his departure, when his pointed leaving statement in Downing Street implicitly argued that he had only been ejected from the leadership of the “parliamentary Conservative Party” (ie not the party nationally) by a panicking herd of MPs, who had actually given him a formal vote of confidence only weeks before. The “stab-in-the-back” myth was founded – a noble and loved leader betrayed by the careerist treachery of the likes of Rishi Sunak, and the stupidity and cowardice of some backbenchers.

After an overlong period of convalescence and a brief, abortive attempt at a comeback as Liz Truss was tottering towards her own downfall, Mr Johnson has relied on old friends and patrons to press his case and plot his return. The fanbase has morphed into a party within a party, the Conservative Democratic Organisation (CDO). Led by Lord Cruddas, a party benefactor, it is promoted by such praetorian figures as Priti Patel and Nadine Dorries. Their message is twofold. First, that Mr Sunak is not the legitimate leader of the party because his candidature was not put to the wider membership in the country. Second, that the Tories cannot win the next general election unless Mr Johnson is brought back. Warm memories of the EU referendum win in 2016 and the 2019 election persist in some Tory circles. They believe that Mr Johnson can turn things around again.