Johnson to join BBC TV debate – but not Channel 4

Front-runner in Tory leadership race will take part in a broadcast on Tuesday, but will avoid ‘cacophonous’ programme tomorrow

BORIS JOHNSON will take part in a televised debate with the main contenders for the party’s leadership next week – but only when more of his rivals have been forced to pull out.

The front-runner in the Tory leadership race pledged to take part in a BBC hustings on Tuesday evening after MPS have voted in the next round of the contest when as many as half of the field could have withdrawn.

The six contenders have to win the support of more than 32 MPS to stay in the contest after Tuesday. Currently only Mr Johnson and two other candidates – Jeremy Hunt and Michael Gove – have the numbers to progress.

In his first broadcast interview of the Tory leadership campaign yesterday on BBC Radio 4’s World At One, Mr Johnson repeatedly said the UK would leave the European Union by Oct 31 and said it would be “bizarre” to run up the white flag and ask for a delay.

He also pledged that more than 3 million European Union nationals would get the legal right to stay in the UK and said he had not snorted cocaine since a “single inconclusive event that took place when I was a teenager”.

TV debates

Mr Johnson said he would appear in a televised BBC debate on the Tory leadership on Tuesday evening – but not one on Channel 4 tomorrow night.

Mr Johnson said he wanted to wait until then because the six-strong field meant that a debate held before then would be too “cacophonous”.

His absence leaves open the prospect of Channel 4 “empty-chairing” the aspiring prime minister during its broadcast tomorrow night.

Mr Johnson said: “I am more than happy to do the BBC TV debate on Tuesday.”

Explaining why he would sit out Channel 4’s debate, he added: “I think it is important that we have a sensible, grown-up debate. My own observation is that in the past when you’ve had loads of candidates, it can be slightly cacophonous …

“And the best time to do that, I think, would be after the second ballot on Tuesday, and the best forum is the proposed BBC debate. I think that’s a good idea.”

‘Blue-on-blue’ attacks

Voters were growing tired of rowing in public between senior Tories, Mr Johnson said.

He said: “The public have had quite a lot of ‘blue-on-blue’ action, frankly, over the last three years. We don’t necessarily need a lot more of that.

“The best solution would be to have a debate on what we all have to offer the country.”

Asked about comments from his deputy, Sir Alan Duncan, that he had to follow around Mr Johnson when he was foreign secretary clearing up after his mistakes like a “pooper-scooper”, Mr Johnson said: “Any more blue-onblue action in this contest is not what I want to get into.”

Mr Johnson said he would not rein in his colourful turn of phrase if he became prime minister. He was criticised last year for saying that Muslim women who wear burkas “look like letter boxes” and then for saying Theresa’s May’s Brexit plan was like “a suicide vest” around the British constitution.

Mr Johnson said: “If sometimes I say things that cause a fluttering in the dovecotes or plaster to come off the ceiling, if it gets people’s attention in politics, then that is no bad thing.”

On his gaffes, he admitted that “maybe it does” get him into trouble, but he added: “We have a good formula to take the country forward, a winning formula: it is a modern, progressive Conservatism.”

Leaving the EU by Oct 31

Mr Johnson said repeatedly that Britain would leave the EU by the end of October, saying it was “perfectly realistic” to renegotiate Theresa May’s Withdrawal Agreement.

He said: “We have to get out by October 31. It would be absolutely bizarre to signal at this stage that the UK Government was willing once again to run up the white flag and delay again.”

He set out how he would cherrypick parts of the Withdrawal Agreement, and then deal with the issue of the Northern Irish backstop by carrying out customs checks away from the border. He said: “There is a clear way that the now effectively defunct Withdrawal Agreement can be disaggregated – the good bits of it can be taken out. My commitment is to honour the will of the people and take this country out on October 31 and to get this thing done.”

Britain had to plan for leaving without a deal to ensure that Brussels came back to the negotiating table.

He said: “I don’t aim for no deal, I don’t want no deal as the outcome of the talks. I don’t want us to leave with a WTO solution as my number one priority. I certainly don’t think that some of the promises of doom and disaster are true, and you can find plenty of people who can give you a different verdict on what no deal would mean.”

EU nationals

More than 3million EU nationals in the UK will be given a unilateral right to remain living in the UK if Mr Johnson becomes prime minister.

Mr Johnson said: “One thing that would be right to do – and which I suggested straight after the referendum result three years ago – is take the provisions on citizenship, the offer that we make to the 3.2million EU citizens in our country and do it in a supererogatory way, do it of our own accord, pass it through Parliament.”

Cocaine

Mr Johnson said he had not snorted cocaine since he was a teenager. Asked “When did you last take cocaine?” he replied: “I’ve answered that question exhaustively, but I can tell you that the canonical answer has been given – a single inconclusive event that took place when I was a teenager, and which I have extensively described already on the BBC.”

Asked if had snorted the drug since then, he said: “No.”