BORIS Johnson loyalist Nadine Dorries has said she believes the Prime Minister will return to Number 10 one day, as Winston Churchill did, because of his “level of genius”.
The Culture Secretary was speaking to GB News on Monday night, defending the outgoing Conservative leader who has been effectively ousted by his party.
Johnson is set to remain as a caretaker Prime Minister until September – although Labour are bringing forward a motion of no confidence in an effort to force a General Election and get rid of the PM sooner.
Journalist Dan Wootton put to Dorries: “I’ve spoken to people in No 10 who still believe he has much to offer and suggest he could even return Churchill-style to No 10 one day.”
The minister said she believes that. “It’s not just me I can assure you my phone is full of messages from people saying he’ll be back,” she told the channel.
“When you’ve got somebody who has his uniqueness, his appeal, his level of genius, you’re not going to get male, stale and pale individual.”
She added: “I definitely think, one day, Boris will be back.”
During the interview, Dorries also took aim at former chancellor Rishi Sunak – whose sudden resignation helped lead to the exodus from government last week.
The minister claimed that Sunak, who is now hoping to replace Johnson as Tory chief, “wasn’t working hard” in Cabinet.
Dorries said she had suspicions that Sunak was plotting against the Prime Minister.
"Not least because when some difficult decisions were taken, like when we wanted to lift restrictions from Covid, it was very difficult to get the Chancellor at meetings to commit to any policies at all,” she recalled.
"Rishi had been planning his campaign, to the letter, launched it the day it was ready, and everybody else's were kind of blindsided.
"Like, what's going on? We've all been working so hard. How can he have been that campaign-ready?
"Well the answer is, he wasn't working so hard, we all were.”
Sunak is currently the favourite to replace Johnson, as he has the most endorsements at 41 MPs.
Dominic Raab and Grant Shapps are among those to unveil Sunak as their top pick.
On Tuesday morning Dorries and Brexit Opportunities Minister Jacob Rees-Mogg revealed they’d be supporting Foreign Secretary Liz Truss to replace Johnson as they apparently seek to block Sunak from being elected.
In an effort to garner support for Truss among the right-wing of the party, Dorries alleged that the Foreign Secretary is “probably a stronger Brexiteer than the both of us” – despite her previously backing Remain.
