13 June 2019 | UK NEWS
Boris Johnson has secured an overwhelming victory today in the first round of the Conservative Party leadership contest. The former Foreign Secretary and backbench MP received 114 votes from Tory MPs, which with a lead of 71, means that Mr Johnson is already seeming like a likely contender for the final round.
However, there is still a long-way to go before either Mr Johnson or anyone else can pick up the keys to Number 10. For anyone who missed the results earlier today, here is a very helpful ‘Wolves Breakdown’.
Conservative Party Leadership – Round 1 – Results:
* Next to the name means they have been eliminated and have failed to meet the criteria of 17 votes in the secret ballot.
Boris Johnson – 114 votes
Jeremy Hunt – 43 votes
Michael Gove – 37 votes
Dominic Raab – 27 votes
Sajid Javid – 23 votes
Matt Hancock – 20 votes
Rory Stewart – 19 votes
Andrea Leadsom* – 11 votes
Mark Harper* – 10 votes
Esther McVey* – 9 votes
This means that both of the female candidates, Leadsom and McVey, have now been eliminated – Britain’s next Prime Minister is now certain to be male. The second round of voting shall take place on June 18th with leadership hopefuls this time needing to secure 33 votes in order to stay in the race.
This will prove to be a tall order for International Development Secretary, Rory Stewart, who currently sits at 19 votes. However, in an interview with the BBC, Mr Stewart mentioned that a recent ConHome poll showed him second place behind Mr Johnson when it came to membership support.
Despite this being true, the margin between Rory and Boris speaks for itself…
Credit: ConservativeHome
As Boris Johnson looks to be a favourite for the final membership vote, the race for who will stand against him is hotting up between Jeremy Hunt and Michael Gove. Currently, Hunt leads Gove by 6 votes, so the question is which MPs from Leadsom, Harper and McVey’s camps will jump on either Michael’s or Jeremy’s bandwagon, and whether this be enough to play catch-up with Boris.
Finally, Tory MP Sir David Amess has voiced his disappointment with the low turnout to discuss the current housing crisis. He said he was “embarrassed” that Tory MPs were more interested in a leadership race then giving speeches in parliament.
Sir David echoed what for many has been a concern for the past two years as he said: “I can understand the excitement, certainly in my party, because of the results being declared upstairs, but Parliament isn’t working well, and I am increasingly worried about this because, if we are in a situation whereby the country and Parliament is split, we are just going to have to accept it and get on with the work. And I do want to see Parliament functioning.”
The question now being: whoever takes up the role of Prime Minister over the next month, will they be able not only to reunite the country but to move the conversation on from focusing on Brexit?
