THE SNP’S Westminster leader Ian Blackford has said there will be a “wave of revulsion” across Scotland should Boris Johnson return as prime minister.
Johnson is reportedly jetting back from the Caribbean as he is being touted as a leadership candidate to take over from Liz Truss less than two months after he left office.
Although he has not announced plans to stand for leader, he is believed to have the backing of dozens of MPs and, in his final speech outside Downing Street, he hinted that he would be back one day.
Blackford told BBC Radio Scotland: “We’ve got a Conservative government that is out of touch and, if I may say so, out of time.
“As we are discussing this this morning, there’s real concern that the Tories might want to foist Boris Johnson back onto us again – I think there will be a wave of revulsion throughout Scotland.”
He continued: “You really have to think that the Conservatives have learned nothing as to what we’ve gone through and the reason why Boris Johnson had to be swept from office.
“We can’t continue to see Parliament as a personal plaything of those on the Tory right that want to enact the policies that they’ve been doing. “
Blackford said it was in the national interest for the Tories to realise “that time is up” and call an election.
He also told TalkTV that Johnson was the first prime minister to be “guilty under law while in office” and described the events of the last few weeks as a “car crash”.
Meanwhile, diehard loyalist Nadine Dorries, the former culture secretary, said she had spoken to Johnson following Truss’s resignation and hinted strongly that he was preparing to run.
“He is a known winner and that is certainly who I’m putting my name against because I want us to win the general election. Having a winner in place is what the party needs to survive,” she told Sky News.
Veteran backbencher Sir Roger Gale, a long-time critic of Johnson, however warned that if he succeeds he could be met with a wave of resignations by Tory MPs.
“I think that there would be people, indeed like myself, who would find ourselves in the awful position of having to resign the Conservative whip,” he told Times Radio.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, who called for an immediate General Election, said the potential return of a man deemed “unfit for office” by his own MPs “adds insult to injury” for voters.
For critics, a comeback would be particularly problematic as Johnson still faces an investigation by the Commons Privileges Committee over claims he lied to Parliament over lockdown parties in Downing Street, which could potentially see him expelled as an MP.
