Boris Johnson has enough support to enter the race to become Britain's next prime minister, his ally and Conservative lawmaker James Duddridge said on Saturday, reporting that the former leader had reached the 100 endorsement threshold.
An unnamed source close to Johnson said the former British prime minister he had 100 backers and therefore "could" be on the ballot, Reuters reported citing the Sunday Times, BBC and Sky News.
Johnson, who arrived in London earlier on Saturday after a holiday in the Caribbean, has not officially declared he is running in the contest, but Duddridge said on Friday that Johnson had told him he was "up for it".
According to BBC, Another hopeful Rishi Sunak is expected to confirm his candidacy to be the next leader of the party and prime minister "soon", according to campaign sources.
The ex-chancellor is the first candidate to secure the 100 nominations to get to the first round of voting in the contest to replace Liz Truss.
Boris Johnson has flown back from holiday amid speculation he will run.
Commons leader Penny Mordaunt is so far the only contender to have officially launched a leadership campaign.
The hopefuls have until 14:00 BST on Monday to find 100 backers. If any candidate reaches 156 nominations out of the 357 Tory MPs the race will be reduced to two candidates, as there will not be enough MPs left to support a third candidate.
It will then go to an online ballot of the Conservative party membership, with the result to be announced on Friday.
But if the party's MPs get behind just one candidate, we could have a new prime minister by Monday afternoon.
