Labour calls for fresh vote to kill no-deal Brexit option
CHALLENGE Keir Starmer LABOUR ambushed the Tory leadership hopefuls with a vote to block a no-deal Brexit.
A cross-party vote was tabled yesterday to prevent the next Prime Minister from crashing out of the EU.
Shadow Brexit Secretary Keir Starmer challenged Cabinet Ministers including Philip Hammond and Amber Rudd to back the plan.
If today’s vote passes, MPs will seize the Parliamentary agenda on June 25 and may then bring in legislation.
A similar vote in March passed by one but backers believe the majority would be greater next time.
RENEGOTIATE
BORIS Johnson must answer questions on his past drug use when he finally breaks cover today, a rival for the Tory leadership has said.
The favourite to be the next PM has spent months hunkered down, avoiding any chance for awkward questions.
Michael Gove’s campaign was damaged after he admitted using cocaine, prompting accusations of hypocrisy from colleagues.
Now rival candidate Mark Harper has urged all those running to be open about their pasts so Conservative MPs can make their own minds up. He said: “If you’ve got nothing to hide, you won’t mind answering the questions.”
Mr Johnson admitted in 2005 he was given cocaine, but “may have been doing icing sugar” and said it did not go up his nose. Two years later, he told GQ magazine it “must have” gone into his nose, but claimed that it had no effect.
In 2018, he said it happened when he was 19, but when that led to headlines saying he had admitted taking drugs, he then issued a denial.
“To say that I have taken cocaine is simply untrue,” he claimed.
It comes as a string of senior Tories issued stark warnings Mr Johnson does not have what it takes to become PM.
The former Foreign Secretary will today make his first public remarks in weeks as he sets out his hard-Brexit pitch.
He will say: “After three years and two missed deadlines, we must leave the EU on October 31.”
But in a pointed jibe, former Tory leader William Hague warned the leadership
CRITIC Steve Norris MP MARK HARPER CHALLENGES BORIS JOHNSON OVER DRUGS winner would only survive if they had a plan to break the Brexit deadlock. Mr Hague said without one, the next PM would lead a “sandcastle administration” which would quickly crumble. In comments thought to be a warning about Mr Johnson, he said it was “by no means clear” candidates were ready for “what is going to hit them if they win”. And former Tory minister Steve Norris added Mr Johnson would be “a disaster” as PM. He said: “Everybody likes Boris – except the people who know him.
“We need serious leadership rather than the headline-grabbing rhetoric when the rhetoric can’t be translated into an actual plan.”
And concerns went beyond Mr Johnson’s hardline position on Brexit. One former senior aide said: “I worry about his capacity to make difficult decisions under pressure. The problem is this – would you really want Boris’s finger hovering over the nuclear button?”
Earlier this month, independent Tory MP Nick Boles, Mr Johnson’s former chief-of-staff, said he was the wrong person for the top job.
He said: “I don’t believe he is capable of making difficult, serious decisions under great pressure.”
Mr Johnson has won the backing of the hardcore ERG group of Tory MPs.
He told them Theresa May’s Brexit deal was “dead” and promised to negotiate a free-trade deal and leave the EU on October 31 come what may.
But it has also emerged he told Remainer Tory MPs he would not pursue a policy of a no-deal Brexit.
If you’ve got nothing to hide, you won’t mind answering the questions..