No 10 frontrunner wrote ‘pro-European letter’ to Tory peer’s widow a year before campaigning for leave
Boris Johnson revealed his support for the European Union’s single market in “a pro-European” letter written the year before he decided to campaign for leave, it has emerged.
The likely prime minister’s pro-EU market sympathies were said to be revealed in a letter of condolence to the wife of the late Tory politician Sir Leon Brittan, who died in January 2015.
Continue reading...Next PM will be told in ‘no uncertain terms’ that axing backstop amounts to no deal
Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt’s Brexit plan to axe the Irish border backstop from the withdrawal agreement will be rejected outright by the European Union, EU sources have said.
Informed sources say that it is doomed to failure and if the next prime minister goes to Brussels with such a plan, he will be told in “no uncertain terms” that it amounts to a declaration of no deal.
Continue reading...Anger as 2007 essay lamenting ‘no spread of democracy’ in Islamic world comes to light
Boris Johnson has been strongly criticised for arguing Islam has caused the Muslim world to be “literally centuries behind” the west, in an essay unearthed by the Guardian.
Writing about the rise of the religion in an appendix added to a later edition of The Dream of Rome, his 2006 book about the Roman empire, Johnson said there was something about Islam that hindered development in parts of the globe and, as a result, “Muslim grievance” was a factor in virtually every conflict.
Continue reading...Stuart Collier tells the Guardian the Tory frontrunner is not fit to be prime minister
A journalist who Boris Johnson secretly discussed helping a friend to have beaten up has demanded an apology from the Conservative leadership candidate as he stands on the brink of Downing Street.
Stuart Collier, the journalist who was at the centre of the incident nearly 30 years ago, said Johnson was not fit to be prime minister.
Continue reading...After an explosive leak, the British ambassador resigned. The special relationship has been propelled into a strange and uncertain new era
Donald Trump, president and showman, was staging a military pageant to celebrate the Fourth of July and independence from the British empire. George Washington’s soldiers, he told a rainsoaked crowd in Washington, toppled a statue of King George and melted it into bullets for battle.
Related: Kim Darroch's fall from grace casts chill over Washington ambassadors
Continue reading...Tory frontrunner says former US envoy confirmed TV debate was a factor in his resignation
Boris Johnson has robustly defended his role in the resignation of Kim Darroch, claiming his remarks in a televised debate had been “misrepresented” to the former ambassador to Washington.
Darroch quit his post on Wednesday, after Donald Trump publicly expressed his fury about a series of highly critical reports that had been leaked to the Mail on Sunday.
Continue reading...Cabinet members seek jobs under new PM with Liz Truss eyeing role of chancellor
Boris Johnson has begun receiving very public job applications from would-be cabinet ministers, with Liz Truss pitching to be a tax-slashing chancellor and Amber Rudd ditching her opposition to a no-deal Brexit in a bid to stay on as work and pensions secretary.
With Johnson on the brink of No 10, senior Tories have begun laying out their credentials for positions in his potential cabinet – some with more hope than others.
Continue reading...Just one Conservative comes to defence of No 10 frontrunner accused of lack of leadership
Boris Johnson has been heavily criticised by fellow Tory MPs over his role in Sir Kim Darroch’s decision to resign as the UK ambassador to the US, with one backbencher saying the frontrunner in the Conservative leadership contest should come to the Commons to apologise.
An urgent question in the Commons about Darroch’s departure, which followed the leak of diplomatic cables critical of Donald Trump’s White House, resulted in repeated condemnation of Johnson, and only one Conservative MP came to his defence.
Continue reading...Theresa May said to be considering controversial step of appointing new envoy
Boris Johnson is under pressure over his role in Sir Kim Darroch’s resignation as British ambassador to Washington, with critics accusing the likely next prime minister of throwing the envoy “under the bus”.
In a shock move which prompted the senior civil servant at the Foreign Office to call an all-staff meeting to reassure “shaken” diplomats, Darroch announced on Wednesday he could no longer continue in his role following a leak of official cables in which he criticised Donald Trump.
Continue reading...Hunt accuses rival Johnson of putting ambition before country in head-to-head Tory leadership debate
Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt escalated the blue-on-blue warfare in Tuesday night’s televised debate, trading blows on which potential prime minister could see through a no-deal Brexit, as Hunt repeatedly emphasised his rival’s refusal to answer questions.
The bitter back-and-forth, which will raise questions over whether Hunt could serve in a Johnson government after the aspersions he cast on his rival, saw the foreign secretary accuse Johnson of putting personal ambition above the welfare of the country.
Continue reading...Rolling coverage of the day’s political news, including the row over the UK ambassador’s leaked memos and latest on Tory leadership contest
Jeremy Hunt, the underdog in the Tory leadership contest, has told President Trump on Twitter his comments about Theresa May “disrespectful and wrong”.
1/2 @realDonaldTrump friends speak frankly so I will: these comments are disrespectful and wrong to our Prime Minister and my country. Your diplomats give their private opinions to @SecPompeo and so do ours! You said the UK/US alliance was the greatest in history and I agree... https://t.co/hNeBWmyyVN
2/2...but allies need to treat each other with respect as @theresa_may has always done with you. Ambassadors are appointed by the UK government and if I become PM our Ambassador stays.
MPs have voted to introduce same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland, unless the power-sharing executive is revived by 21 October, by 383 votes to 73 - a majority of 310.
Continue reading...Danger for Boris Johnson, if he becomes PM, is being portrayed as governor of 51st state
In normal times, the breakdown in relations between Donald Trump and the British ambassador to the US could be readily finessed. Trump would vent his anger, and gain private British assurances that Sir Kim Darroch will be replaced by someone more palatable by the end of the year.
It would create an awkward interlude in the special relationship but every family has bust-ups.
Continue reading...Tory leadership frontrunner pledges to leave the EU by 31 October ‘come what may’
Boris Johnson has pledged to get the UK “match fit for no deal” to ensure it can leave the EU on 31 October “come what may”.
The Conservative leadership frontrunner said there would be “no second chances” as he stressed that the Halloween deadline was real, “not fake”, in a comment aimed at his rival Jeremy Hunt.
Continue reading...Boris Johnson is being warned that embracing a disruptive no-deal Brexit would fuel nationalism in Scotland and risk the future of the union, as both opponents and supporters predict that he will now claim a decisive victory in the Tory leadership election.
Related: Brexit must work for the whole UK to see off Scottish nationalism
Continue reading...Tory leadership contender says English is not first language in ‘too many parts of our country’
Boris Johnson has said there are “too many parts of our country” where English is not spoken as a first language and that he would require all immigrants to Britain to learn English.
At a hustings event for the Conservative leadership race in Darlington on Friday, the former mayor of London praised the capital’s diversity but suggested some communities were not doing enough to integrate into society.
Continue reading...Follow the day’s political developments, including the latest on the Conservative leadership race as 160,000 Tory members begin voting
Boris Johnson has apologised for offending Scots, while condemning the SNP’s record in government and insisting that a no-deal Brexit is “extremely unlikely” in an interview in the Press and Journal.
Asked about a series of magazine articles in which he described being a Scottish MP as a “political disability” and said that “government by a Scot is just not conceivable”, Johnson replied:
“Of course I am sorry if people take offence at distorted quotations from old newspaper articles – but one of the things I want to make clear is that Conservatives must reach out beyond the Westminster bubble and that means not just speaking in waffle and jargon”.
Boris Johnson has been shearing sheep in North Yorkshire before the hustings in Darlington today.
Good luck @BorisJohnson #BackBoris pic.twitter.com/2dqd2FRCbK
Our house, two Tory members voted for Boris today ... #backboris pic.twitter.com/2mf5zeM0i9
Continue reading...Shadow minister says research shows even a no-deal Brexit would need Commons approval
Keir Starmer has warned Boris Johnson that MPs will “do everything to stand in his way” if he tries to force through a “bad deal or a no-deal Brexit”.
Johnson, the frontrunner in the race to be Britain’s next prime minister, has suggested he will “disaggregate” Theresa May’s “otherwise defunct” withdrawal agreement and implement its less contentious elements.
Continue reading...Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen
Boris Johnson has been tweeting from Belfast.
Fantastic to be here in Northern Ireland speaking to our Conservative & Unionist family. I will never accept a deal that seeks to bind us in the EU’s customs union forever, or which divides our United Kingdom. In everything I do as PM, I will strengthen our union of four nations. pic.twitter.com/hI3QLkuxrw
And this is what Boris Johnson said at the Belfast hustings about a no-deal Brexit. (See 12.58pm.) He called it at one point a WTO Brexit (which is what Nigel Farage calls no-deal.) Johnson said:
I think we should be very positive about Brexit, and we should not be terrified of a no-deal Brexit. We should not be terrified of coming out on WTO terms.
We will make sure we look after the agricultural interest ... whatever is necessary to protect farmers. We will make sure that just-in-time supply chains are protected, and I think a lot of the negativity about a WTO Brexit has been wildly over-done.
Continue reading...It has become associated with online mobs and prudishness, but shame can be a powerful tool to change our culture and hold governments and corporations to account
“First holiday snap!” read the faux-cheery caption on the picture Laura Muldoon posted, featuring a bunch of young men on a plane, one flipping the V sign and another giving the finger to the camera.
Muldoon, who was flying on Ryanair with her girlfriend to Spain for a wedding, tweeted that she had just been called a “miserable bitch”, a “dyke” and a “lesbo” after complaining about rowdy behaviour from fellow passengers. The picture went viral and was picked up by newspapers. Before long, some of the alleged perpetrators had been identified publicly, their social media feeds combed for incriminating details, their mothers tracked down for comment – named and shamed, along with the airline whose staff Muldoon accused of failing to intervene sufficiently.
Continue reading...PM says Britain must leave EU with ‘a good deal’ in apparent rebuke to ‘do or die’ comment
Theresa May has made a thinly veiled attack on Boris Johnson’s “do or die” approach to leaving the EU on 31 October, insisting that the right approach for Britain was to leave with a deal.
Attending her last EU summit in Brussels as prime minister on Sunday, May took aim at the approach of the Tory leadership frontrunner, who has taken an increasingly hardline approach in recent days.
Continue reading...