The plunging pound had not done it. The wholesale dumping of a budget did not do it. A complete collapse in party discipline that led to MPs cursing colleagues and others sobbing did not do it. Even the resignation of Liz Truss, making her Britain’s shortest serving prime minister by some distance, was not enough.
Yet as allies of Boris Johnson immediately let it be known that he was planning to stand for party leader again, just minutes after Truss had retreated into Downing Street at the end of her humiliating resignation speech, a Tory MP with long-lasting doubts about the party’s direction said they were now finally contemplating their future within it.
