Politics

Hunt and Johnson take their battle for leadership to grassroots Tory members



Jeremy Hunt kick-started his leadership battle against Boris Johnson today by describing the weeks ahead as his “personal marathon”. 

The Foreign Secretary beat fellow Cabinet member Michael Gove by just two votes last night to secure his place as the candidate taking on favourite Mr Johnson in the run-off for Number 10. Tweeting from Worcester this morning Mr Hunt said: “Early morning run in beautiful Worcester at the start of my personal marathon.”

Mr Hunt and Mr Johnson will now have to woo the Conservative Party’s 160,000 grassroots members to vote for them, with the contest ending towards the end of next month.

Both will take part in a hustings in Birmingham tomorrow for party members, with hustings in 15 other regions until mid-July. 

The result of the ballot will be announced in the week of July 22. 

Today Mr Johnson received another high profile party backer, chair of the Justice Select Committee Bob Neill, who said: “He’s committed to doing all he can to get a pragmatic Brexit.” However, the whittling down of a 10-strong initial field of candidates to the final two has been beset with speculation of “dark ops” as the vote shares for various candidates rose and fell dramatically.

Tory MP Antoinette Sandbach, who backed International Development Secretary Rory Stewart before he was knocked out in the third round of voting, claimed she had been told she was a “disgrace” and to “leave the party” by a fellow Conservative MP. 

“Dark ops”: Antoinette Sandbach says she was told she was a “disgrace” (www.mcandrewphoto.co.uk)

She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme the man reacted after she removed him from an old WhatsApp group. The incident is now being investigated by the party’s chief whip.

She said: “I’m a Conservative MP. I remained in the party. I voted for the withdrawal agreement three times. I am not somebody that hasn’t supported the deal. This was clearly a comment around Europe. Even though I may have argued for Remain originally I have accepted the result and supported the Prime Minister three times.

“It will be investigated and I think the reality is that those sorts of comments are just really unacceptable.”

Asked if there had been unusual behaviour surrounding the voting, she said: “I’m certain there were dark ops during the leadership election.” Today The Times reported that MPs have accused Mr Johnson’s team of heavy-handed tactics to secure votes, and also encouraging MPs to vote for Mr Hunt to try to stop Mr Gove making it to the final two. 

The paper says one MP received a message saying “How are you enjoying your job? Do you want to carry on?” allegedly sent from Mr Johnson’s camp. He got 160 votes from MPs, Mr Hunt 77 and Mr Gove 75. Mr Stewart went from an initial 19 votes up to 37 and back down to 27, when he was eliminated. The claims that Mr Johnson’s team encouraged people to vote tactically are strongly denied by his team.

Bank of England governor Mark Carney today dismissed Mr Johnson’s claim that Britain can avoid EU trade tariffs after a no-deal Brexit.



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