BORIS Johnson is set to return to frontline politics to campaign for the Conservatives at the next General Election, according to reports.
The Times quoted sources close to the disgraced former prime minister, who resigned as an MP in 2023 after being found to have repeatedly and deliberately misled parliament, as saying he was keen to “take the fight to [Keir] Starmer”.
The Labour leader is expected to become the next prime minister after a General Election, with polling suggesting he is set to return a landslide victory ending 14 years of Tory rule.
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Johnson’s Conservatives returned an 80-seat majority in the 2019 General Election, thanks in no small part to the fall of so-called “Red Wall” seats in the north of England.
The Times reported that Johnson will help Rishi Sunak campaign in these areas, which are historic Labour heartlands and largely expected to return Labour MPs.
A UK Government source said that Sunak and Johnson, who fell out in 2022, are now on better terms but added: “Don’t expect Boris to appear on stage with Rishi — that’s not going to happen — but he is up for it. The relationship is in a fairly good place.”
A spokesperson for Johnson said: “Boris Johnson’s focus at the moment is writing and speaking and he is very productively engaged on that.
“His position has been consistently in support of the Conservative Party for his entire political life and that will remain so.”
Sunak is also expected to lean on David Cameron, who was made a peer and then Foreign Secretary in a shock return to politics in late 2023, in campaigning for the upcoming General Election.
Starmer however, will not turn to former Labour prime minister such as Tony Blair and Gordon Brown for the campaign. A party source told the Times he would instead “fight this on his own terms”.
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