Can Rishi Sunak stop the Boris Johnson bandwagon as the ex-PM picks up some big-name backers?

Can Rishi Sunak stop the Boris Johnson bandwagon in the fight for the soul of the Conservative Party?

The former chancellor so far has a comfortable lead in pledges of support from Conservative backers, but the ex-PM is picking up big names.

In the Cabinet, predictably, political soulmate Jacob Rees-Mogg is backing Mr Johnson and so is fellow-Brexiteer Simon Clarke.

But the most valuable endorsement has come from Defence Secretary Ben Wallace, who many MPs and activists would have liked to see enter the race.

Politics live: Boris Johnson backed by third cabinet minister

Some MPs believe the third potential candidate, Penny Mordaunt, who was the first to declare publicly that she’s running, is a much more credible unity candidate than Mr Sunak or Mr Johnson, who are both loathed by the rival camps.

But so far, she’s in third place in pledges of support from MPs and may struggle to get 100 nominations, and so it’s looking like a Sunak-Johnson battle for the Tory crown at the moment.

Mr Johnson, currently on holiday in the sun-kissed Dominican Republic in the Caribbean, claims he can save the Tories from an election wipe-out. He would, wouldn’t he?

But can he? BoJo is box office and his supporters point to his 2019 general election victory, when the Conservatives won a majority of 80, as evidence that he’s a vote winner.

And he’s still the darling of the party activists. A YouGov poll this week suggested he’d be backed by 33% of members, ahead of Mr Sunak with just 23%.

So if he reaches the 100 nominations required to get on the ballot paper and makes it to the final two voted on by the members, he’d be the firm favourite to win.

But it’s by no means certain that he’ll make it to 100 backers. The only candidate who can confidently expect to reach 100 nominations is Mr Sunak.

Mr Johnson is a massively divisive figure. Some Tory MPs are horrified at the prospect of a BoJo comeback and are even threatening to quit the party if he wins.

Remember, after the three Ps – Paterson, Partygate and Pincher – 59 ministers resigned and 148 Conservative MPs voted against him in a confidence vote.

Opinion polls suggest he’s so discredited by scandals and sleaze that he’s lost his touch, despite what his loyal supporters claim.

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Can Sunak come back from last summer’s leadership defeat?

Whoever succeeds Liz Truss faces a nightmare in-tray. Will Jeremy Hunt’s Halloween rescue plan for the economy go ahead? No. 10 says that’s up to the new PM.

Will the new PM go ahead with the spending cuts and tax increases Mr Hunt is planning? Mr Johnson, after all, was a big-spending prime minister.

Will Mr Hunt even still be chancellor this time next week? If you thought Kwasi Kwarteng’s 38 days in the Treasury was brief, Mr Hunt could be out after just a fortnight!

The opposition parties, obviously, want a general election with polls pointing to a Tory wipeout. But in a contest that’s potentially a three-horse race a general election is a non-runner, whoever wins the Tory crown.