Boris Is Back With A Book But UK Tories Say He's History

An audacious raid on Dutch vaccines, a "manly pep talk" with Prince Harry and near-death from Covid -- excerpts from the memoir of former UK prime minister Boris Johnson are entertaining Britain's political class.

But at the Conservatives' annual get-together in Birmingham, central England, activists appear not to be paying too much attention to their former party leader, focusing instead on the battle to find the next one.

"I haven't heard much about Boris in this conference," 21-year-old Tory member Dillon Hughes told AFP.

"I don't know if people are avoiding it but I think people are trying to move past the Johnson era and are kind of moving forward and looking into a bright a new future within the party."

Johnson's memoir, "Unleashed", hits shelves on October 10 and pledges what he calls the "unfiltered truth" about Brexit, Covid and the Conservatives.

It charts his rise in politics to become London mayor, before leading the "Leave" campaign during the 2016 Brexit referendum, to becoming Tory leader in 2019 when he secured a landslide general election victory.

Johnson was ousted in disgrace by colleagues fewer than three years later following a series of scandals, particularly the illegal Covid lockdown-breaking parties at Downing Street.

Extracts released from the book so far include Johnson claiming that he considered launching an "aquatic raid" on a warehouse in the Netherlands to retrieve Covid vaccine doses during a supply row with the European Union.

Johnson, 60, admitted the plan was "nuts".

But he said he discussed it in March 2021 with senior military officials, who advised it would not be possible to achieve undetected and was also likely to raise questions with the NATO ally.

Johnson also writes that he feared for his life -- or as he put it, that he "might have carked it" -- while in intensive care with Covid, had it not been for the "skills and experience" of his nurses.

He spent several days in intensive care in April 2020 and wrote that on his admission, he "started to doze but didn't want to sleep -- partly in case I never woke up".

Another excerpt claims that he tried -- unsuccessfully -- to persuade Prince Harry and wife Meghan not to leave the UK and move to the United States in early 2020.

There was "a ridiculous business... when they made me try to persuade Harry to stay. Kind of manly pep talk. Totally hopeless," Johnson writes, according to the excerpts serialised in the right-wing Mail newspapers.

Eyebrows have been raised over the timing of the drip-feed of revelations, just as the Conservatives meet to hear pitches from four MPs vying to be the party's next leader.

Party member Peter Young, 60, acknowledged that with the conference in full swing, the timing was apt for Johnson to release his book.

But the spectre of the so-called "Big Dog" of Downing Street was not hanging over the gathering, he added.

"I don't think it matters terribly that the book is issued. It's not being discussed. Will I read it? Probably not, but I might do one day," he said.

Laura Weldon, a former Conservative candidate, suggested the memoirs were really just a focus for newspapers and political journalists.

"Boris is a character and Boris is somebody who the media adore. And so if Boris took the bins out, I'm sure it would be a front-page story," she said.

"I haven't really heard many people talk about it, say, outside of the media, so the (party) members are looking forward not backwards to Boris."

Conservative Party

Johnson, with his mop of unbrushed white hair and fondness for ancient historical references, is widely regarded as one of the most charismatic politicians in recent British history.

But he divides opinion like few others.

To many supporters he remains a hero for taking Britain out of Europe in 2020, and for attracting less well-off voters to the party.

"He'll always be someone that the members will love," Jonathan Rich, a 58-year-old Tory party supporter, told AFP.

Hughes, the 21-year-old activist, said Johnson -- educated at the elite private school Eton College and at Oxford University -- "really had a voice for the working class" and had "inspired" him to join the Conservatives.

"But I don't think now is the time for him to come back," Hughes added. "And I don't think he should ever come back really."

Young agreed. "He's not here and he's not standing and he's not part of the conversation. And I think the party has buried him, rightly or wrongly, so that's history now," he said.