Tory tribes go to war

Boris Johnson set for leadership bid, despite warnings it will plunge party into fresh chaos. Rishi Sunak remains current favourite to win, as Penny Mordaunt throws her hat into the ring

- Rowena Mason Peter Walker

Boris Johnson was gaining ground last night for an audacious bid to return to Downing Street, despite critics warning he risked plunging the Tories into fresh chaos over the impending parliamentary inquiry into the Partygate scandal.

As the former prime minister raced back from his Caribbean holiday to drum up support among MPs, Rishi Sunak remained the favourite to win the Conservative leadership contest with nearly 80 publicly declared backers, including Dominic Raab and Sajid Javid.

Johnson won the support of five cabinet ministers yesterday, Ben Wallace, Simon Clarke, Jacob ReesMogg, Anne-Marie Trevelyan and Alok Sharma; the former home secretary Priti Patel was believed to be considering coming out in his favour.

Allies of Johnson boasted he would "easily" make the threshold of 100 MPs required to get on the ballot paper and they argued he would be a strong contender to win in a vote of the 150,000 Tory members.

Johnson allies talk up his return as PM, but others predict 'disaster'

They said that he was seeking a "unity pact" with Sunak, his former chancellor, to avoid the contest having to go to a vote of Tory members.

But one rival leadership camp questioned whether Johnson really would reach 100 backers amid reminders of the way his leadership tore the party apart when he was in Downing Street. Critics of the former prime minister warned that some Tory MPs would be likely to go independent or defect to another party if he won again.

One source close to the privileges committee of MPs - which is investigating whether Johnson lied to parliament over the Partygate scandal - said there was a "huge amount of damning material" against him.