TORY MP Marco Longhi has explained why he’s backing Boris Johnson to return as party leader.
Speaking to GB News, Mr Longhi said: “I’m backing Boris because Boris is the only candidate who received a mandate at the General Election. And it wasn’t just any mandate. It was a landslide. It was a landslide that was achieved with polls prior to that election that we’re in a similar position to where they are now. And look at where we are now without Boris.
“This is a point of democracy. I believe that the people of this country deserve what they voted for, and they wanted Boris Johnson. And they were very unhappy when MPs ultimately gave in to the Twittersphere and to the intelligentsia, who ultimately wanted to get rid of Boris because they knew they had a better chance of getting back into the EU or fitting their own agendas.
“I’m backing Boris because he is the right man. He’s got the elected mandate, and he’s the only candidate that has got that mandate.”
On the probe into whether Mr Johnson misled Parliament, which is yet to conclude, Mr Longhi said: “Are we going to treat Boris the way we’ve treated him before and find him guilty until the facts have been assessed? We live in this country as a democracy, where we are innocent until proven guilty. It needs to be proven that Boris willfully and intentionally misled Parliament. Now, I for one do not believe that at all. I’m absolutely convinced that whatever he stated in Parliament was done so on the basis of what he genuinely believed to be the truth.
“Did parties occur in number 10? Yes, they did. But these parties were from civil servants. And what most people don’t know is that there are literally hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of offices there. There should be managers who control their own staff. It’s not the job for the Prime Minister to be policing every nook and cranny to check that everybody’s keeping to rules.”
But Mr Longhi’s party colleague, the MP Tim Loughton, disagreed.
Asked on GB News whether Mr Johnson could unite Rishi Sunak, Penny Mourdant and Jeremy Hunt, Mr Loughton said: “No, absolutely not. Boris remains a big figure. But it will be a deeply regressive and divisive step to go back to Boris with everything still overhanging him. He was only obliged to step down as Prime Minister less than two months ago. That is not the way forward I’m afraid.
“It will just reignite all the old baggage we’ve had in the past, great character values and the great things he achieved. He is not the solution to the current problem that we have.”
“It’s a backward step. We have got to find somebody without all that baggage. And frankly people in my party both the parliamentary party and in the wider membership have got to park their egos.
There’s too much still overhanging with Boris. You cannot go back to somebody who was Prime Minister just two months ago.”
