Boris Johnson has publicly thrown his hat into the ring for the Conservative party leadership, saying he is determined to see Brexit become a reality.
Addressing insurance brokers at a conference in Manchester, he said: “I’m going to go for it. Of course I’m going to go for it.
“I don’t think that is any particular secret to anybody. But you know, there is no vacancy at present.”
The former foreign secretary had initially made light of a question on whether he intended to make a bid to replace Theresa May as prime minister.
“We’ve run out of time,” he joked.
However, he then added: “But I’ll answer your question nonetheless. There’s no vacancy. On the other hand, what I will say is that there has been a real lack of grip and dynamism in the way we’ve approached these talks.
“We’ve failed over the past three years to put forward a convincing narrative about how we exploit the opportunities of Brexit.
“All I can say, as tactfully and usefully, as I can, is that I have a boundless appetite to try to get it right, and to help the country to get on the right path.”
Earlier Johnson said he had predicted the rapid rise of the Brexit party – or a party of similar rightwing leanings – 18 months ago.
“I said if we continued in this supine way there would rise again, like a great puff ball, a rightwing party.
“The only way to address it is for us to get Brexit done, but also to get it done in such a way that we actually deliver on the mandate of the British people.
“If we can’t do that there really will continue to be that threat from the Brexit party and others.
“People will just say that democracy is being ignored, and that one way or another the ruling elite are conspiring collectively, whether overtly or not, to subvert it.”
On the prospect of a second vote on Brexit he said: “People would feel really outraged that they’re being frogmarched to the polls again by the establishment. I think they’re wrong. They’re barking up the wrong tree, and it would be giving encouragement to the Scottish Nationalists who also want a second referendum.”
“They had a discussion, they had a long, careful think about it. It’s contemptuous of people’s opinions to say they were incapable of making up their minds.”
One of Johnson’s likely closest rivals was also giving a speech on Thursday. While Sajid Javid, the home secretary, has yet to officially announce he will stand, he is widely expected to, using his address to argue that small businesses are treated unfairly by government.
Introducing a new report by the Centre for Policy Studies – set up by Margaret Thatcher – on a simplified tax scheme for small firms, Javid reminisced about the women’s clothing store in Bristol run by his father, above which the family lived.
“I remember with my dad, his business had its ups and downs,” he told the audience in Westminster. “I could see how the family mood would change sometimes when a bill arrived and you wonder: are you going to have the business over the next few week, the next few months, to actually meet that bill. Could you be in trouble?”
Javid was critical at the lack of what he called a “level playing field” over tax for small and big businesses, and was particularly scathing about tech giants:
“Whilst the small businesses are paying their fair share of tax they see these tech businesses paying what I would say is a piddling share of tax, if anything at all. That is not fair, it’s not right, and it’s not acceptable.”
