The chance of a Boris Johnson comeback has risen dramatically since Liz Truss’s resignation. Over 40 MPs have so far come out to publicly back him while today’s papers are filled with briefings about how the former prime minister would be best placed to save the party from electoral doom. Now it’s no great secret that plenty of Johnson loyalists backed Liz Truss in the last leadership election primarily to stop Rishi Sunak. There were some MPs who always said Johnson should return. Now as MPs consider recent dire polling, factoring it into their own electoral calculus to see whether they would lose their seat, more are beginning to ask whether Johnson is worth a gamble.

Johnson comes with baggage. And there is one problem in particular: the privileges committee inquiry. He is under investigation for misleading parliament over whether he misled MPs about partygate. Remember, Johnson had insisted that no rules were broken. He went on to be handed a fixed penalty notice for breaching his own lockdown laws – though it related to an incident involving birthday cake rather than the more serious allegations of late-night parties. The former prime minister will be called to give evidence in the next few weeks to the committee.

If he was found to have misled parliament he could be disciplined and even face a Commons suspension which would pave the way for a by-election if the suspension is for ten or more sitting days. In order to avoid such a fate, Johnson’s supporters have been waging a campaign in parts of the media alleging the inquiry is a stitch-up. Johnson’s legal team have argued that the committee was using ‘a fundamentally flawed approach’.

Were he to re-enter No. 10, Johnson could try to throw out the whole process or whip his party against supporting any punishment. Both would involve highly contentious Commons votes. It would risk a repeat of the Owen Paterson debacle – where there was a botched attempt to spare the MP from suspension. Johnson critics in the party would be very unlikely to respond well to such an ask – already one Tory MP has threatened to abandon the Conservative whip if Johnson comes in. It means that any return to No. 10 for Johnson would quickly face uncertainty and political danger.