- Friday, April 26, 2024
By: Admin Super
THE BRITISH leadership race narrowed to five today (18) as Brexit figurehead Boris Johnson prepared to defend his runaway favourite status in his first television debate.
Johnson expanded his lead over his remaining rivals in a second secret ballot held by 313 Conservative MPs.
The former foreign secretary and London mayor picked up 126 votes while former Brexit secretary Dominic Raab got knocked out after falling three short of the 33-vote threshold.
International development minister Rory Stewart continued his against-the-odds challenge by expanding his support base from last week’s 19 to 37.
Foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt picked up 46 votes and environment secretary Michael Gove 41. Home secretary Sajid Javid scraped through with exactly 33.
Further rounds of voting scheduled for Wednesday (19) and Thursday (20) will whittle the list of contenders down to just two.
The finalists will face the ruling party’s 160,000 grassroots members in a vote next month to decide the winner.
Johnson has warned that he is prepared to get Britain out of the European Union without an agreement – as long as it is is done by October 31.
But he has also called this tough talk a negotiating tactic designed to scare Brussels and force it to compromise on the nagging issue of status of Irish border.
EU leaders have long ruled out re-opening the binding part of the agreement they all signed with May last year.
(AFP)
