HE has not even officially declared – yet – but Boris Johnson has already become the focal point of the race to succeed Liz Truss as Conservative leader and Prime Minister.

In a reminder of the party’s habitual taste for factionalism, some vehemently anti-Johnson MPs are considering their future should he defeat Rishi Sunak next week. Sir Roger Gale, the veteran backbencher, has threatened to quit should Mr Johnson win. Fresh reports suggest that around a dozen Tory MPs will resign the whip in the event of a Johnson triumph.

Ben Wallace, the Defence Secretary, who had been viewed as a potential unity candidate of the sort called for by Theresa May, has decided not to run, and indicated that he “would lean towards” Mr Johnson. The Foreign Office minister Jesse Norman counsels on the other hand that recalling the former Prime Minister would be “absolutely catastrophic”.

Jacob Rees-Mogg’s “Boris or bust” tag-line in a pro-Johnson tweet is seen as evidence by some colleagues of his lack of interest in party unity. We can expect to see much of this over the weekend as candidates seek the 100 votes they need.

Mr Johnson’s supporters within the party point to him as a proven winner, as the one candidate who could unite the party and lead Britain. They have never quite forgiven those Conservatives, including Mr Sunak, who helped engineer his downfall a few months ago.

Johnson has magnetism to spare and is capable of communicating with voters who are otherwise turned off by politics, but what cannot be forgotten is the trauma that led to his departure, when his administration was distracted by scandal after scandal, and disaffected Tory MPs abandoned him in their droves.

It cannot be forgotten either that he is still under investigation by the privileges committee after being accused of misleading MPs about lockdown parties in Downing Street. If found to have been in contempt of Parliament, he could be suspended from the Commons or even lose his Uxbridge and South Ruislip seat. It remains a serious matter.

His allies have briefed that he believes himself to be the only leader standing between the Tories and an electoral wipeout. But sceptics doubt whether Johnson Mk.II would be able to restore financial stability after the turmoil of recent weeks.

There are reports that Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s Budget may be shifted from its October 31 date because of its proximity to the outcome of the leadership election. Given that Mr Hunt, who quickly shredded almost all of Ms Truss’s mini-Budget, has spoken of the “eye-wateringly difficult decisions” that have to be made, is his uncompromising approach something Mr Johnson would feel comfortable with, so soon into his second Premiership?

Mr Sunak, who has yet to declare that he will be running, remains the bookmakers’ favourite. He has kept a commendable silence since his defeat by Ms Truss, but he will have taken quiet satisfaction in the way that his prophecies about her “fairytale” economics came true. Should he win, he has the probity and the experience to make a success of his time in Number 10. He will govern at a slower pace than Ms Truss; he will calm the markets, jittery and unpredictable after the calamitous Truss interregnum, and begin to repair Britain’s tattered image abroad. Furthermore, Mr Sunak would probably come up with a budget-balancing plan that would be less excessive, and cause less pain, than the one that Mr Hunt is said to be be readying.

It may be that a unity government is the way ahead to help mend a fractious party. Mr Johnson has reportedly urged his former Chancellor to reach out and “get back together”. Could a restoration of the Johnson-Sunak axis succeed?

The rivalry between the two men is said to be bitter, but there are some precedents in Conservative history of Prime Ministers working with rivals. Mrs Thatcher brought ‘Wets’ into her Cabinets. John Major found key roles for Michael Heseltine and Douglas Hurd, both of whom he had defeated in the 1990 leadership election. Mr Major immediately made it his ambition to unite the party “totally and absolutely” and go on to win the next general election. He did just that, defeating Neil Kinnock at the polls.

Unity, then, can work but it remains to be seen whether Mr Johnson and Mr Sunak can co-operate for the lasting good of the country.

If the Conservatives were honest with themselves, however, they would recognise the need for a fresh mandate from the voters, and call an election. Despite the fusillade of such demands from opposition parties, it is exceedingly unlikely to happen. The Tories currently trail Keir Starmer’s Labour Party by a quite startling margin. Having been in power for 12 years, they will not give it up easily.

So the country will have to endure another leadership election – this one, at least, considerably shorter than the one that sprawled across the summer months – and hope that the new Prime Minister, whoever it is – Sunak? Johnson? Penny Mordaunt? – will belatedly restore order and common sense.

Much has been made of the issues that need urgent attention: the cost-of-living crisis, rocketing energy bills, an economy on the brink of recession, businesses nervous about their ability to keep going. the escalating war in Ukraine, and the damage caused by Ms Truss’s ill-thought-out mini-Budget. These issues, and indeed the national interest, have been neglected as the Conservatives continue to be consumed by their own psychodrama. The need for stable government has rarely been more compellingly felt.

Iain Duncan Smith, a former leader of the Conservatives, made a telling point yesterday when he said that his party is becoming ungovernable, more concerned about what it stands against rather than what it was for. Small wonder, he contended, that it has completed three regicides and four leadership elections in just five years.

Commentator Peter Oborne, writing in the New York Times, has put it even more bluntly, arguing that in the space of a generation the Conservatives have been turned into a party of “monomaniacs, incompetents and ideologues”, a party so riven by “internal feuds, personal hatred and ideological disagreements” that it has become – that word again – ungovernable Internationally, it is now a laughing stock.

It is impossible to predict what lies in store for the country in the two years between now and the next scheduled general election. The next Prime Minister has to unite the party behind him or her, and demonstrate discipline and fiscal responsibility. It is surely not too much to ask.

If it is, the country’s verdict awaits. The Conservatives could find themselves out of power for an uncomfortably long time. They will not be able to say that they had not been warned.