Boris Johnson is to launch his Conservative leadership campaign on Wednesday as questions were raised over polling that suggested he would win a general election landslide as prime minister.
A ComRes survey for the Daily Telegraph – which pays the former foreign secretary £275,000 for a weekly column – said Mr Johnson’s Tories would win 37 per cent of the vote, which the paper claimed would translate to a 140-seat majority following analysis by the Electoral Calculus website.
It came as MPs prepared an attempt to block the possibility of any new prime minister proroguing parliament and forcing through a no-deal Brexit, as former Brexit secretary Dominic Raab has proposed.
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A bit of light relief before things get serious later, courtesy of Rory Bremner.
Liz Truss has defended Boris Johnson from accusations he is refusing to speak to journalists during his leadership bid.
She told the Today programme: “He has got nothing to hide… The important thing is he is talking to parliamentary colleagues.”
The chief secretary to the treasury also backed Mr Johnson when asked on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme about the time he was sacked for “lying in public” about an affair, saying: “I do not think the British public is interested in Boris’ personal life.”
She also denied the former foreign secretary was to blame for Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s ongoing detention in Iran because of his error in stating she was in the country to train journalists.
She said “apologists for the regime” were blaming Mr Johnson. “The fact is he did a brilliant job in my opinion as foreign secretary,” she added.
Speaking of Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe, her plight features in our roundup of Mr Johnson’s worst gaffes and mistakes.
Britain’s high commissioner to Singapore has said ministers in his host country are “mystified” by the current political situation in the UK, it has been reported.
Politico reported Scott Wightman, who is leaving his post, as having said in a diplomatic cable that he and others had been forced to work “minor miracles for UK interests faced with the utter political shambles of Brexit”.
Singapore’s politicians were “mystified as to how our political leaders allowed things to get to this pass,” he is said to have added.
He said: “The nation [Singaporeans] admired for stability, common sense, tolerance and realism grounded in fact, they see beset by division, obsessed with ideology, careless of the truth, its leaders apparently determined to keep on digging.”
On the other side of the house, things aren’t looking rosy…
Labour has been rocked by fresh infighting after a meeting with Jeremy Corbyn was described as so fractious that cleaners were “still mopping up the blood on the carpet”, writes Lizzy Buchan.
Labour MP Anna Turley said colleagues were “shell shocked” by the anger expressed at the weekly parliamentary Labour party meeting, as MPs tore into Mr Corbyn over the party’s handling of Brexit and internal complaints.
The row comes in the wake of a poor set of European election results for Labour, as well as anger over the decision by the equalities watchdog to launch a probe into antisemitism in the party.
Michael Gove has had a dig at Boris Johnson’s decision to keep a low profile recently.
The pair previously fell out when Mr Gove sabotaged Mr Johnson’s nascent leadership bid in 2016 after the Brexit referendum.
M’colleague Tom Batchelor has examined Boris Johnson’s past statements about drug use.
Michael Gove’s leadership bid has been overshadowed by his admission of taking cocaine in the past.
What will Mr Johnson’s admissions mean for his campaign?
Tory leadership candidates are to make their case for being the next PM at a meeting of the 1922 Committee this afternoon, from about 4.15pm.
Another pollster has cast doubt on the Telegraph‘s poll suggesting its star columnist might win a landslide in a general election. Joe Twyman is formerly of YouGov.
He says the unknown quantity represented by the Brexit Party makes things complicated.
It will not be possible for parliament or the speaker to block a no-deal Brexit if the government is determined to deliver it, Andrea Leadsom has said, writes Andrew Woodcock.
In a swipe at Tory leadership rivals such as Jeremy Hunt and Rory Stewart, who argue that MPs will not permit EU withdrawal without an agreement, Ms Leadsom said: “You can’t block no deal. You can’t put into law that you can’t leave without a deal.”
She insisted that, as prime minister, she would be ready to drop her own Brexit bills in order to stop MPs using them as a means to delay departure.
Boris Johnson is to launch his leadership campaign at 11am. He has kept out of the spotlight recently despite the publicity storm surrounding him.
He’s expected to face questions over his past cocaine use, following the Gove revelations.
Jenny Chapman, the shadow Brexit minister, has called today’s vote on blocking a no-deal Brexit is a “safety valve” aimed at Tory leadership contenders pledging to freeze MPs out of the decision.
The Labour MP told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “This is about that safety valve, that lock in the process, so that somebody who may find themselves elected a leader of the Tory party on a promise of, in Dominic Raab’s case, proroguing Parliament, and locking Parliament out of this process – they can’t do that.
“They would have to come back to parliament and get the consent of MPs.”
Questions are being raised about a Daily Telegraph poll suggesting the Tories would win a general election landslide under Boris Johnson.
Mike Smithson, of politicalbetting.com, raised a prior ComRes poll that claimed to show a massive Conservative lead ahead of the last election in 2017 – in which Theresa May in fact lost her majority.
Chris Terry, formerly of the Electoral Reform Society, tweeted that “polling on hypotheticals is bad”.
Catch up here on one of the major events taking place today…
MPs are making a cross-party bid on Wednesday to seize control of the Commons agenda to prevent the next Tory prime minister forcing through a no-deal Brexit, writes Andrew Woodcock.
The binding motion, tabled by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and backed by senior figures including Tory grandee Sir Oliver Letwin and Liberal Democrat leader Sir Vince Cable, would see MPs hijack the parliamentary timetable on 25 June, allowing them to introduce legislation to rule out no deal and bar a PM from using prorogation – the suspension of parliament.
Their intervention comes as the frontrunner, Boris Johnson, in the Tory leadership race renews his pledge to take the UK out of the EU by 31 October with or without a deal.
Welcome to our live coverage of UK politics on Wednesday.
