Nadhim Zahawi says it was a mistake for Tories to force Boris Johnson from No 10

‘I wish we had held our nerve,’ Nadhim Zahawi said. Photograph: Victoria Jones/PA

Former chancellor Nadhim Zahawi has said he and his Conservative colleagues were wrong to force out Boris Johnson as prime minister in 2022.

Johnson resigned after less than three years in No 10 after more than 50 resignations from government of MPs and staff and waves of backbenchers urging him to quit over the handling of the Chris Pincher affair and numerous other scandals. He resigned as an MP a year later.

Zahawi said in hindsight it was the incorrect call to oust Johnson and described the former Conservative leader as the “most consequential leader since [Margaret] Thatcher”.

“I wish we had held our nerve,” the MP for Stratford-on-Avon told the Sunday Times. “Many colleagues got spooked. If colleagues had stepped back and just realised Twitter was not the country, we’d have probably made a very different decision.”

A day after Johnson appointed Zahawi as chancellor, the MP went to see the then-prime minister and told him that the “herd was stampeding” and unless he was prepared to quit on his own terms “they are going to drag your carcass out of this place”.

The following afternoon Johnson announced his tenure was ending.

Zahawi, who was elected as an MP under David Cameron in 2010, became the vaccine minister under Johnson in November 2020 and was then promoted to education secretary.

In July 2022, Johnson appointed Zahawi as chancellor after the slew of resignations including Rishi Sunak from No 11 and Sajid Javid as the health secretary.

Asked whether the Tories would be in a better place had Johnson survived, Zahawi said: “I don’t know that. I wish we had held our nerve, yes.

“I genuinely felt that the combination of activists against Boris and our opponents were in many ways enjoying the parliamentary party getting so spooked. I think if people had just taken a breath, stepped back and audited the achievements.

“If you go back … how many prime ministers have had to deal with Brexit, a global pandemic and then obviously economic recovery beyond that: to cap it all, war on our continent, where he led the world.”

The tumultuous period will be covered in Zahawi’s memoirs The Boy from Baghdad: My Journey from Waziriyah to Westminster, which is due to be published in August. Zahawi has announced he will step down at the next election, one of 64 Tories to do so.