Boris Johnson has 100 supporters and could succeed Liz Truss as UK prime minister, Sunday Times chief political columnist Tim Shipman said on Twitter, citing an unnamed source close to the former prime minister.

The BBC and Sky News also reported separately that Johnson, who arrived in London earlier on Saturday after a holiday in the Caribbean, now has more than 100 supporters.

Although Johnson has not officially announced that he will run, his supporter and Conservative MP James Duddridge said on Friday that Johnson had told him he “wants to run”, according to Reuters.

• Read also: Extraordinary political revival or “death spiral”? Boris Johnson has returned to the UK to try again to become Prime Minister

An extraordinary political revival for Boris Johnson?

According to a Sky News reporter on the flight that arrived in London on Saturday morning, some passengers booed Johnson on the flight to Britain.

It would be an extraordinary political renaissance for the former journalist and ex-mayor of London, who left Downing Street surrounded by scandal but complained that his colleagues had “changed the rules halfway through the election race” – an attack on Tory MPs who were not allowed to work. full mandate.

Former defense secretary Penny Mordaunt has become the first contender to formally announce her intention to run for the next Conservative Party leader, but Johnson and Rishi Sunak, his former finance minister, are the favorites ahead of next week’s vote.

The prospect of Johnson returning to power is a contentious issue for many in the Conservative Party, which is deeply divided after the removal of four prime ministers in six years.

For some Tory MPs, Johnson is a specialist vote-getter, able to attract the attention of voters across the country not only with his fame, but also with his style of energetic optimism.

For others, he is a toxic figure and the question is whether he can convince the dozens of MPs who have deserted him that he is now the man who can unite the party and reverse its decline.

Conservative MP Andrew Stephenson said on Saturday that Johnson was a “proven prime minister” who pushed for Brexit, boasted of a rapid roll-out of Covid vaccinations and was one of Ukraine’s most vocal supporters.