Boris Johnson is skipping Conservative leadership hustings with political journalists on Monday morning, hours after refusing to attend Channel 4’s televised debate.
His rival candidates are all participating in the event, which began at 11.10am, but the frontrunner’s team claim he is too busy doing debate preparation to attend.
Channel 4 marked the Mr Johnson’s absence from Sunday’s debate with an empty podium.
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“Where’s Boris?” Jeremy Hunt, the foreign secretary, asked during the event.
“If Boris team won’t let him out to debate five pretty friendly colleagues, how will he get on with 27 EU countries?”
Mr Johnson remains the most likely candidate to replace Theresa May as prime minister.
Matt Hancock announced his support for the former foreign secretary’s leadership bid shortly after the debate, in what is seen as a crucial endorsement for Mr Johnson.
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The controversy over Katie Hopkins’ comments and Donald Trump’s retweet shows no sign of disappearing.
The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) have now criticised Rory Stewart for condemning Ms Hopkins while refusing to attack the US president.
“Katie Hopkins & her racism is comparatively unimportant – it is the fact that President Trump endorsed her Islamophobic message, which is truly unacceptable,” said Miqdaad Versi, the MCB’s spokesperson.
“And it is on this, that you remain silent. This is shocking and disappointing.”
Rory Stewart has condemned part of a controversial Katie Hopkins tweet which attacked Sadiq Khan.
The leadership hopeful said he 100 per cent disagreed with the language, in a tweet posted on Monday.
Mr Stewart’s comments come after Conservative Party leadership candidates were asked about Donald Trump choosing to retweet Ms Hopkins’ statement.
“This is Khan’s Londonistan,” Ms Hopkins wrote, after highlighting some recent stabbings in London.
The term “Londonistan” is often used as a derogatory reference to London’s Muslim communities.
Mr Khan, the mayor of London, is a practicing British Muslim.
“I 100% disagree with both the language and the sentiment of the last sentence of this tweet. Can all candidates please confirm the same,” Mr Stewart tweeted.
Jeremy Hunt, the foreign secretary, refused to criticise Mr Trump over the retweet during hustings.
“President Trump has his own style and I wouldn’t use those words myself,” Mr Hunt said.
“But the sentiment is enormous disappointment that we have a Mayor of London who has completely failed to tackle knife crime and spent more time on politics than the actual business of making Londoners safer.
“And in that, I 150 per cent agree with the president.”
The foreign secretary’s comments were immediately branded “disgusting” by the Muslim Council of Britain.
The hustings between the Conservative leader candidates among Westminster’s journalists are now over.
Here are two important stories from the event:
On Boris Johnson’s decision not to show up to the hustings, Mr Gove said: “These hustings without Boris are like Hamlet without the prince. Of course, we all know what happened in the play, Hamlet didn’t become king.”
Asked whether he had any regrets over the last three years, he said it was a mistake to trigger Article 50 so early without a plan.
He says he pressed on the PM a “different course” but she pressed on with the plan she believed. All of those who resigned from government, he adds, and are running for the leadership ended up backing Ms May’s deal on March 29.
Michael Gove now speaks about his plans for Brexit, and repeats his insistence this morning about Jeremy Corbyn being in Downing Street if the government pursued a no-deal scenario.
He said the same on Radio 4’s Today programme this morning.
Jeremy Hunt has sided with Donald Trump over his attacks on Sadiq Khan, despite the US president endorsing the racist term “Londonistan”.
The foreign secretary refused to criticise Mr Trump for retweeting a post by right-wing commentator Katie Hopkins, which had called the capital “Khan’s Londonistan”.
“President Trump has his own style and I wouldn’t use those words myself,”
Gove says Islamophobia is an “equal evil” to antisemitism, and he would root anyone in the Conservative Party showing Islamophobia.
Asked about an independent inquiry in the Conservative Party, Gove says the current chairman Brandon Lewis is doing an excellent job.
On the prospect of a second referendum, he replies: “It’s a flat, no”.
Pressed on Donald Trump’s comments on Sadiq Khan, he adds:
“It’s always a mistake to retweet anything Katy Hopkins tweets”.
Michael Gove – the environment secretary – is now up as the final guest. It’s a pleasure once more to address the 1922 committee, he says.
Gove says he believes he can “strike fear into Jeremy Corbyn’s heart” at the despatch box each Wednesday for PMQs.
“We need to make sure in the final two we have people who are ready to be prime minister from day one,” he says. “I believe I am pre-eminently qualified.”
The environment secretary says if we are going to leave without a deal, you will have to get parliamentary approval. He rules out suspending parliament.
Asked if Speaker John Bercow had an “agenda”, he said John & I have children at the same school, so he won’t speak ill of his “good friend”.
But rising outsider rules out joining no-confidence vote by Labour – or backing a ‘catastrophic and divisive’ Final Say referendum, writes Rob Merrick.
Asked on how he would get a no deal through parliament, he says he has never said he wanted to suspend parliament, but will not rule anything out. “We had the vote last week which showed MPs do not take no deal off the table,” he adds.
All the business about suspension of parliament, he adds, Rory Stewart has pledged to bring back a deal similar to Theresa May’s – already three times rejected by parliament.
Prorogation “seems to be a central plank” of his policy proposal, he says. “There is only one saying it is central to his Brexit policy”.
Raab says he would “absolutely” commit to monthly press conferences if he becomes prime minister.
Pressed on Donald Trump’s comments, he says he does not think the language from the US president is not helpful or constructive. He adds he is proud to have grown up in the “melting pot” of London.
“I’m proud to have a Muslim mayor of London,” he claims.
Asked whether he was confident of having 33 MPs backing him tomorrow at the second ballot, he says he is “quietly confident”.
Raab says the negotiations in Brussels broke down because Theresa May and the cabinet were not prepared to hold the line, which is why he resigned.
Pressed on his “obnoxious bigots” comments, and whether he would give at least half of his cabinet jobs to women, Raab says he is not “going to go for arbitrary quotas”.
Ex-Brexit secretary Dominic Raab is now up in front of the journalists. He says participating in the questioning is “essential” for anyone wanting to be prime minister – a swipe at Boris Johnson.
Raab says he’s been the most categorical of candidates, saying he is prepared to leave without a deal. “Im the candidate the British people cant trust,” he says.
Asked whether Brexit has damaged the party’s reputation as the party of business, he says that Brexit is divisive and businesses have different views.
Asked whether Boris Johnson is to blame for the continued incarceration of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe in Iran, Hunt replies: “I’m not going to comment on that – everyone makes mistakes.”
Has Brexit damaged Britain’s standing in the world?
“The fact of Brexit – that we voted to leave the EU – has not. The way we’ve gone about Brexit – Brexit paralysis – has.”
Asked how disappointed he was to be so far behind Boris Johnson last week in the first round of voting, he says: “I was delighted to come second to Boris last week.”
Hunt warns a snap general election could result in the “total and utter devastation of the Conservative Party”.
Pressed on the language used by Donald Trump at the weekend, the foreign secretary says he wouldn’t use those words himself.
On the sentiment, about dealing with knife crime, though, he adds he would “150%” agree with the US president – raising a few eyebrows.
Foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt is now up – he says he can be trusted to go to Brussels and come back with a deal.
He claims it is possible to renegotiate the deal – despite the repeated insistence from Brussels it will not.
On a second referendum, he says he is a Unionist to its core. “I would never do anything” to break up the union, he says.
Hunt says if he was given a binary choice between no Brexit and no deal, he says no deal, as the democratic risks of not delivering Brexit are more severe than the economic risks.
Universal credit is the right way forward, Hunt adds when asked about welfare. But he refuses to say whether it has driven people to use food banks. “The principle is right,” he claims.
The home secretary declines to say he would endorse a candidate if he falls at the next round, adding he is in it to win the race. But he does say he would accept a job in the cabinet.
Asked whether he would trust Boris Johnson to win the country, he replies: ” Yes”.
Pressed on violence in the capital and crime over the weekend, Mr Javid says he wants to so everything he can to reduce blood on the streets. “I brought back stop and search – the year I’ve been home secretary – we have seen a 20 per cent of the homicide rate in London,” he says.
Sajid Javid says he would vote Leave if there were to be a second referendum – “we cannot keep having this debate,” he says.
“We need to leave, and we leave properly,” he adds.
Javid adds he did see a tweet from President Trump criticising the London mayor Sadiq Khan. “He should stick to domestic issues.”
The home secretary urges him to stop intervening in British politics, when asked about the tweet by a journalist.
He adds that monthly press conferences are a “brilliant idea”.
Home secretary Sajid Javid has now arrived, he says it is “really good to be here”. He says he is very concerned about the challenges ahead, and a credible plan to deliver Brexit to keep Jeremy Corbyn out of Downing Street.
On welfare – specifically universal credit – he says he wouldn’t make any fundamental change, but he would reform the system to give more dignity to claimants.
“I think the appeals process needs to be overhauled – it needs to be independent,” he says.
Asked how confidence he is on getting the required numbers to pass the second ballot on Tuesday, he says he is “extremely confident”.
He also says the party should see the contest as an “opportunity” and it should not turn into a vicious debate.
Rory Stewart says he would not consider holding a general election before 2022 – “It would be really dumb thing to do”.
“We’ve got to win the next election on action, and not words.”
Asked by The Independent whether he would vote down the government in a motion of no confidence in a last resort to avoid a no-deal scenario, he says he is going to stop a no-deal Brexit without bringing down the government.
He believes dozens of his colleagues would vote to prevent leaving the bloc without a deal, rather than having to vote in a no confidence motion.
Stewart also confirms he did not work for MI6, in case anyone was wondering.
