BORIS SHOWS HIS HAND
‘I’m going for it’: Johnson in dramatic bid for No10 Party tells ‘frustrated’ May: Your time is up
BORIS Johnson made a dramatic pitch for Theresa May’s job yesterday – at the exact moment Tory MPs were mounting a coup against her.
In an extraordinary intervention, the former Foreign Secretary said he was ‘going for it’, effectively declaring his candidacy to be Britain’s next prime Minister. It came as Mps forced Mrs May to agree to set out a timetable for her departure that will see her resign as party leader before the end of July.
In a speech to an insurance brokers’ conference in Manchester – for which he is thought to have been paid tens of thousands of pounds – Mr Johnson was asked if he would stand.
He replied that there was ‘no vacancy’, but added: ‘I’m going to go for it – of course I’m going to go for it.’
In Westminster, during a ‘tense’ 90minute meeting of the backbench 1922 Committee, a ‘frustrated’ Mrs May told Mps they were in danger of picking the wrong leader if they forced her out before Brexit was delivered.
Warning that a contest now would be rigged in favour of Brexiteer candidates such as Mr Johnson, Mrs May said it would be impossible for the party to debate its future properly until Britain had left the EU. An ally said: ‘She told them it would be a much better contest if you have got the first stage of Brexit out of the way, because then you can look to the future.’
But with the Tory party in uproar over Mrs May’s failure to take Britain out of the EU on time – and fearful of a drubbing at the hands of Nigel Farage’s Brexit party – she was told her time was up.
Although Mrs May refused to name a date, she has agreed to meet committee chairman Sir Graham Brady after a fourth and final attempt to pass her
Brexit deal early next month to set a ‘timetable’ for her departure.
Committee sources said in practice this means Mrs May will step aside by the end of July at the latest to allow the party to choose a new leader in time for the Tory conference in September.
The decision fires the starting gun on what is set to be the most divisive Tory leadership contest for years. More than a dozen candidates are expected to stand, including Brexiteers Dominic Raab and Esther McVey, along with Cabinet ministers Sajid Javid, Jeremy Hunt, Matt Hancock and Andrea Leadsom.
Frontrunner Mr Johnson will face a fierce ‘Stop Boris’ campaign at Westminster, where Tory MPs will decide which two candidates should go forward for election by the party’s 125,000 members.
Critics claim Mr Johnson’s role in the Brexit campaign has made him too ‘toxic’ with floating voters, and especially those in Scotland, which voted heavily to remain in the EU in 2016.
Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson is a vocal critic and Conservative MPs north of the border have launched an underground campaign at Westminster, codenamed ‘Operation A**e’, to keep him from power. But allies of Mr Johnson dismiss the charges, saying he gets ‘numerous’ invitations to address Tory associations in Scotland.
He has also spent months wooing Tory MPs in private, telling them he is the only candidate who can save them from the ‘existential’ crisis posed by Mr Farage and Jeremy Corbyn. One minister criticised Mr Johnson’s decision to launch his campaign while Mrs May is still in office, adding: ‘To do it while the Prime Minister is fighting to deliver Brexit is unseemly in a way that is typical of the man.’
But allies said Mr Johnson felt he had a duty to resolve the Brexit crisis.
The former foreign secretary said he had a ‘boundless appetite’ to achieve a successful Brexit. He insisted that if Britain made serious plans for a No Deal exit, EU negotiators would be forced to make concessions, including dropping the controversial Irish backstop.
Mr Johnson said that ‘for a long time’ after agreeing to become Mrs May’s foreign secretary, he felt the Government was going to get Brexit ‘right’.
‘Then we bottled it,’ he added. ‘ Now we’re at the stage where we’re teetering on the edge. There’s a risk we will remain in this limbo state where we’re run by the European Union. If you’re going to come out, do it with conviction.’ Mr Johnson said he regretted pulling out of the contest to replace David Cameron in 2016, after a devastating attack by his Vote Leave ally Michael Gove. He said: ‘I do regret it. Because what happened, I had a campaign chairman [Mr Gove], we had a disagreement and things didn’t evolve on that morning entirely the way I had hoped.’
BORIS Johnson has already met 200 Conservative MPs during a lengthy charm offensive to get him on the Tory leadership ballot, it emerged last night.
He has warned them that the party faces an ‘existential’ crisis – and that only he can save them from both Nigel Farage and Jeremy Corbyn.
Yesterday the former foreign secretary formally declared that he wants to succeed Theresa May as Prime Minister.
But his campaign for the top job has been in full swing for months. Sources say he has hosted around 200 MPs, over half the Parliamentary party, in an attempt to rally them to his cause.
MPs have been meeting him in 15-minute slots in his fourth-floor office in Portcullis House. A whiteboard on the wall lists all the slots for the day. While other candidates have been parading their credentials with media appearances, Mr Johnson has barely been seen in public while he focuses on winning over MPs.
Before the leadership vote is put to the Tory membership, Mr Johnson must first reach the final two after a secret ballot of MPs – meaning he must win his colleagues over to succeed.
After David Cameron quit in 2016, Mr Johnson was a strong favourite to succeed him but pulled out after his Brexiteer colleague Michael Gove withdrew support at the last minute.
MPs who have met Mr Johnson in recent weeks say his new pitch is a simple one. ‘He says the Tory Party is in an existential crisis,’ said one. ‘He says he can see off Farage and beat Corbyn in any election when it comes.’
He argues that he can deliver Brexit but is also focused on domestic policy and keen to stress his credentials as a One Nation Tory, MPs say.
One minister who saw him recently – but isn’t yet backing him – said that unlike many of the other candidates he can talk about both Brexit and broader policy issues, and be ‘both a peacetime and wartime leader’.
Mr Johnson’s charm offensive contrasts sharply with his chaotic 2016 run, which fell apart when his campaign chairman, Michael Gove, turned on him to launch his own bid for the leadership.
Mr Johnson pulled out, fearing he did not have enough support among MPs, having not made enough effort to woo potential supporters.
This is a decision he deeply regrets. This time, allies insist, it will be different. They are keen to stress the ‘rigour and discipline’ of his campaign and his resolve.
Since resigning as Foreign Secretary over Mrs May’s Chequers deal last July Mr Johnson has also lost weight and got a more conventional haircut. His second marriage of 25 years ended last summer but he is happily living with his new girlfriend, Carrie Symonds.
He has a settled campaign team, and speaks to Lynton Crosby, the Australian political strategist nicknamed the ‘Wizard of Oz’, every day.
However, it’s unlikely the discipline will last the entire campaign. Indeed, yesterday’s announcement, at an insurance industry convention, was not planned. His allies admit it’s difficult to control a ‘maverick’. But this latest step is unlikely to make much difference in the long campaign.
‘Everyone knows he is running anyway,’ said a source close to Mr Johnson. ‘It’s an open secret. And half the Cabinet have declared. It looks better than weaselling around the question.’ Mr Johnson, who is still bruised by what he considered to be disloyal briefings by Foreign Office staff, is understood to have made reform of the civil service a priority of any premiership.
Six months ago, the prospect of a Boris victory seemed remote. But now even MPs who are not his natural supporters admit his campaign has got momentum.
With every defeat for Theresa May’s EU withdrawal deal, and every fall in the polls, his prospects have improved as MPs look to someone who they think can save their seats.
If Mr Johnson can fend off rival Brexiteers such as former Brexit secretary Dominic Raab – and gather enough votes to make it to the final round, the darling of grassroots Tories will strongly fancy his chances in the vote among party members enraged that Brexit hasn’t happened.
With so many enemies in Parliament, however, that’s still a big if. Now he has formally announced, the sizeable number of MPs who want Anyone But Boris will also start gearing up
His critics, most of whom are on the Remain side of the party, argue that Mr Johnson is fundamentally unfit for high office. They fear he will drag the party away from the centre ground and adopt ‘populist’ policies and rhetoric.
Mr Johnson once said that he would like to be Tory leader ‘if the ball came loose from the back of the scrum’, and this time around he’s determined to grab it. The contest is likely to be decided by whether anyone can stop him.
‘He says he can see off Farage and beat Corbyn’