Rory Stewart, the surprise candidate in the Conservative leadership contest, has claimed that Tory MPs are moving into his camp, amid signs that his rivals are increasingly jittery ahead of Tuesday’s second round of voting.
Mr Stewart was boosted by the backing of David Lidington, the de facto deputy prime minister. He said Mr Lidington’s support was “a vote of confidence in somebody he feels could run a cabinet and be prime minister”.
Candidates need 33 votes to progress into the third round of voting; in the first round last week the international development secretary polled 19 but since then his energetic and direct style of campaigning has electrified the contest.
Mr Stewart said on Tuesday he expected to pick up more than half of the 20 votes cast for Europhile health secretary Matt Hancock in the first round. Mr Hancock has pulled out of the contest and is backing Mr Johnson.
Mr Stewart is seen by some Tory MPs as the only candidate likely to unsettle Boris Johnson, the clear frontrunner, who will emerge from the shadows on Tuesday night to take part in a BBC leadership debate against the other remaining candidates. The result of Tuesday’s vote is expected at about 6pm.
The Daily Telegraph, which pays Mr Johnson to write a weekly column, led its front page with a story headlined “Mystery of Stewart’s past links with MI6”, while Michael Gove, another rival and former Times columnist, also took a swipe at the former diplomat.
Mr Stewart told the BBC that he had “served his country” before adding that even if he had been a spy he would be breaking the law if he confirmed it. “If someone asked me if I was a spy I would say no,” he said.
Mr Gove, writing in the Times, urged Tory MPs not to “polarise” the party on Brexit. Without naming Mr Stewart, it was interpreted as a warning that if the international development secretary made the final shortlist of two, it would divide the party.
Mr Stewart, a former Remainer, has warned that it will be impossible to get the EU to offer a better deal than the one secured by Theresa May and that parliament would not allow Britain to leave without a deal.
Mr Johnson, on the other hand, claims he can secure a better deal, without giving much detail on how, and has vowed to take the UK out of the EU on October 31 in any circumstances.
Conservative MPs will by Thursday have whittled down the list of candidates to a shortlist of two, with Mr Johnson all but certain to be one of the names presented to the party’s 160,000 members for a final vote next month.
The battle to be the other name on the shortlist is intensifying. Sajid Javid, home secretary, and Dominic Raab, former Brexit secretary, are viewed as the most likely to drop out of the contest on Tuesday: Mr Javid won 23 votes in the last round and Mr Raab won 27. The last placed candidate will be eliminated even if he exceeds the 33-vote threshold.
Mr Stewart is now breathing down the necks of Jeremy Hunt, foreign secretary, who won 43 votes in the first round, and Mr Gove who won 37 votes; both are struggling to pick up momentum.
Meanwhile, Ivan Rogers, former British ambassador to the EU, has launched another lacerating attack on those such as Mr Johnson who believe a “managed” no-deal exit could be achieved without causing massive harm to the British economy.
Speaking at a wealth management conference in London, Sir Ivan said: “No deal can and will be ‘managed’ or controlled to a degree. And it would be. But by the EU. Ask the Swiss about trading and dealing with the EU from outside.”
He said the EU would hold all the cards in such a situation and ridiculed those Eurosceptics who suggested that if the UK unilaterally dropped all tariffs on EU imports in a no-deal scenario then Brussels would reciprocate.
“An inverted pyramid of piffle,” he said, citing a renowned comment by Mr Johnson. “The EU could only remove tariffs on a ‘most favoured nation’ basis, ie to all trading partners, when with all other trading partners they would get no reciprocation.”
Sir Ivan added: “So it is 100 per cent certain that they will apply tariffs to UK goods if we go ‘no deal’. I give you a cast-iron guarantee on that.”
He also lampooned those who had faith in “the belief theory” of negotiations: “If we have enough true belief, confidence in our greatness and chutzpah, we shall achieve all we want. It reminds me of some of the more ill-fated underachieving England World Cup campaigns of past decades.”
