Michael Gove surged into pole position to face Boris Johnson for the Tory crown today – as Sajid Javid was dramatically ejected from the contest.
The Environment Secretary, whose campaign at one stage looked to be fatally damaged by his cocaine admission, racked up an extra 10 votes from Tory MPs in the latest ballot to reach 61 – leapfrogging Jeremy Hunt on 59.
Boris Johnson was still way out in front with a massive total of 157, meaning he has more than half of the 313-strong parliamentary party in his camp.
But the stage is now set for hours of frantic lobbying for the second place spot, which will be announced at 6pm after another round of voting.
Mr Javid is almost certain to line up behind Mr Johnson – who is believed to have offered him the post of Chancellor – but many of his 38 supporters will be up for grabs.
Sources close to Mr Hunt immediately stepped up their attack as he tries to regain the initiative and secure second place. ‘Boris and Michael are great candidates but we have seen their personal psychodrama before,’ one senior source said. ‘It’s time to offer the country someone the EU will actually talk to.’
Mr Johnson’s allies have been accused of plotting an ‘Oxford Union knifing’ and the political equivalent of ‘revenge porn’ as they try to stop Mr Gove getting into the head-to-head. There is speculation Mr Johnson could ‘lend’ support to Mr Hunt to ensure he finishes ahead of his old rival.
Many of Mr Johnson’s closest acolytes have never forgiven Mr Gove for betraying him in the 2016 leadership contest, when he pulled his support at the last second and launched his own abortive bid.
MPs are anxious about the prospect of continuing the long-running struggle between Mr Johnson and Mr Gove – whose rivalry stretches back to when they were at Oxford together.
Pitting them against each other in a month-long contest for votes from Tory members could see blue-on-blue attacks plunge to new depths.
Rory Stewart, who was knocked out last night, has blamed ‘dark arts’ for his demise – with claims Johnson’s allies propped him up with votes to ensure rival Dominic Raab was evicted, before pulling their backing.
Cabinet minister Amber Rudd, who is campaigning for Mr Hunt, this morning urged Mr Johnson to condemn the ‘game playing’ by his fans. But asked as he went in to vote today whether he knew anything about the ‘dark arts’, Mr Johnson merely smiled and said: ‘No.’ He refused to say whether he had voted for himself.
Sajid Javid was eliminated after coming last in the latest ballot of MPs today – securing just 34 votes from MPs
There are claims Mr Johnson’s allies are determined to evict Mr Gove (pictured at his London home today) from the contest
Mr Johnson (pictured giving an interview in his office today) was jubliant after securing support from more than half of Tory MPs in the ballot today
One Tory MP told MailOnline Mr Johnson’s supporters were ‘taking the p***’ and their ‘arrogance’ was alienating the wider party.
‘This is Oxford Union knifing. This is revenge porn. This is season two of some peculiarly bleak Nordic noir, where you don’t know in the final episode whether they are going to f*** each other or throttle each other,’ they said.
What happens next in the Tory leadership race?
Tory MPs have now whittled the field of challengers down to just three candidates.
And when the result of the fifth ballot is announced at 6pm they will have selected the final two.
At that point Tory MPs will have completed their part of the leadership contest and the remaining two candidates will then be put to Conservative Party members to choose from.
The final pair will have to face a series of 16 hustings events over the next month with Theresa May’s replacement expected to be announced in the week starting July 22.
Mr Hunt also ramped up his rhetoric against the front runner, urging his colleagues to recognise the party ‘can do better than Boris’.
And underlining the warnings about the ‘psychodrama’ between the other candidates, he said: ‘Critical decision now for all colleagues is what choice do we present to the country? And what future?
‘Choose me for unity over division, and I will put Boris through his paces and then bring our party and country back together.’
In a sign Mr Hunt could benefit from Mr Stewart’s departure, minister Margot James has said she will support him.
However, the surge for Mr Gove, who added 10 to his tally, set alarm bells ringing among the Hunt team.
It is unclear how many votes Mr Hunt will be able to secure from Mr Javid’s support, given that the Home Secretary and his closest lieutenants are expected to line up behind Mr Johnson.
But there could be scope for Mr Johnson to deploy some of those backers to shut out Mr Gove.
The two men are said to have patched up their differences at a personal level, but the hatred between their respective camps is tangible.
Mr Gove made a thinly-veiled pitch for support from Mr Javid after the result this afternoon, describing him as a ‘hero and a great friend’.
‘Well done @sajidjavid for a brilliant and inspirational campaign. You are a hero and a great friend. You have so much more to give the party and the country in the future,’ he tweeted.
Meanwhile, Mr Stewart said former competitors have been in touch trying to win him over – but insisted he would not be backing anyone publicly.
‘I’ve been getting texts like you wouldn’t believe,’ he joked.
MPs loyal to Mr Johnson have been boasting about plotting the Environment Secretary’s downfall, with one gleefully vowing to ‘humiliate’ him.
Boris is accused of plot to knock out Gove
Boris Johnson’s allies were accused of an ‘Oxford Union knifing’ of Michael Gove and the political equivalent of ‘revenge porn’ today amid claims dirty tricks are being deployed to get him out of the Tory leader battle.
The favourite’s outriders have been accused of plotting to settle old scores with Mr Gove by ‘lending’ votes to other candidates.
The extraordinary scheming comes as Jeremy Hunt and Mr Gove scramble to woo supporters of Sajid Javid, who was eliminated from the contest this afternoon, and Rory Stewart, who went last night.
Many of Mr Johnson’s closest acolytes have never forgiven Mr Gove for betraying him in the 2016 leadership contest, when he pulled his support at the last second and launched his own abortive bid.
Mr Stewart has blamed ‘dark arts’ for his demise – with claims Johnson’s allies propped him up with votes to ensure rival Dominic Raab was evicted, before pulling their backing last night.
Cabinet minister Amber Rudd, who is campaigning for Mr Hunt, this morning urged Mr Johnson to condemn the ‘game playing’ by his fans. But asked as he went in to vote today whether he knew anything about the ‘dark arts’, Mr Johnson merely smiled and said: ‘No.’
Mr Johnson’s team have approached Mr Javid – who came fourth in the ballot yesterday – to become chancellor, according to allies of the home secretary.
There is mounting speculation that he will pledge support for Mr Johnson in return for the plum post in the new government.
Maverick leadership hopeful Mr Stewart was dramatically booted from the contest yesterday after coming last with just 27 votes – down from 37 on Monday – leaving four hopefuls left to fight it out.
Mr Johnson picked up support from Mr Raab, who was evicted in the previous round, to increase his tally again from 126 to 143 – tightening his grip on the keys to Downing Street.
In that round, Mr Hunt came second with 54 votes, Mr Gove came third with 51, and Mr Javid fourth on 38.
Mr Johnson’s supporters believe that facing Mr Hunt in the final two would be easier than taking on Mr Gove.
Many of Johnson’s team have a ‘visceral hatred’ for the environment secretary and were directly accused by Mr Stewart of dirty tricks yesterday.
One Tory MP said: ‘This is Oxford Union knifing. This is revenge porn.
‘This is season two of some peculiarly bleak Nordic noir, where you don’t know in the final episode of season two whether they are going to f*** each other or throttle each other.’
The MP said the ‘Machiavellis’ on Johnson’s team were hard at work.
‘This is revenge day today. Have you ever seen a cat play with a mouse? Johnson is purring and Gove is the squeaker,’ they said.
Mr Johnson tweeted his delight at topping the ballot again today. Mr Javid thanked his supporters (right) as he bowed out of the race
Mr Hunt (pictured out running today) has been in second place in the first three Tory ballots – but fell behind Mr Gove in the latest vote meaning there is all to play for
‘It has (added excitement) if you like Tory melodrama. You have to see Johnson with a top hat, cape and twirly moustache and poor old Gove lashed to the railway line whilst the flying Scotsman comes thundering down.’
However, the MP said the machinations were not going down well in the MPs’ tea room at Westminster – or with the wider public.
Rivalry between Boris & Gove goes back to Oxford University days
Boris Johnson and Michael Gove on the campaign trail for Vote Leave in 2016
The rivalry between Boris Johnson and Michael Gove stretches right back to their university days.
It was described in a biography of Mr Gove by Owen Bennett, serialised in the Mail earlier this month.
From the moment Gove arrived at Oxford University, he had set his sights on becoming President of the Oxford Union. In a 1987 collection of essays entitled ‘The Oxford Myth’, one former president advised others how to ascend to the post. A candidate needs ‘a disciplined and deluded collection of stooges’ who will persuade people in their respective colleges to back you, the essayist noted. Collecting and motivating these ‘stooges’ is a skill in itself.
The presidential candidate must convince the stooge that there is something in it for them; that by so nakedly attaching themselves to his or her particular bandwagon the fruits of success will somehow trickle down.
Yet, as the author of the essay pointedly revealed: ‘The tragedy of the stooge is that even if he thinks this through, he wants so much to believe that his relationship with the candidate is special that he shuts out the truth. The terrible art of the candidate is to coddle the self-deception of the stooge.’ In his first year at Oxford, Gove willingly became a ‘stooge’. Indeed, to the student who wrote those very words: Boris Johnson.
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson was born in New York on June 19, 1964 -three years before Gove entered the world in Scotland.
By the time Gove arrived at Oxford, Johnson was one of the big figures on campus. His shock of blond hair, his larger-than-life persona, meant he was someone everybody knew.
Johnson enrolled in 1983 to read Classics at Balliol College and had his sights set on the Union presidency in much the same way as Gove would in future years. He failed in his first attempt to get elected in 1984/85, but had another crack at it a year later.
This time, Johnson hatched a plan to reach out to more of the electorate than his Old Etonian demeanour had previously won over. He decided to mask his natural leanings by adopting the Social Democratic Party, the new political movement launched in 1981.
With the Tory wolf now dressed in SDP clothing, Johnson needed a flock of stooges to spread his many messages across campus.
Gove was a willing member of the ‘Boris cult’, he later remembered, providing a vivid description of his first encounter with the man: ‘It was in the Union bar. He was a striking figure with sheepdog hair and penny loafers, standing in a distinctive pose with his hands in his trouser pockets and his head bent forward.
‘I think people in the country find it bizarre, but then politics is in such a bizarre place,’ they said.
‘I think colleagues here find it distasteful. They find it arrogant. They think the Johnson campaign is taking the piss. If you want to win you maximise your vote and don’t play silly buggers.’
Johnson supporter Jacob Rees-Mogg said any ‘dirty tricks’ vote transfer campaign by supporters of the former foreign secretary to try and knock Michael Gove out of the contest would be ‘silly’.
Mr Rees-Mogg said: ‘I think people should always vote for the candidate they support. ‘It is really silly to try and game elections because you can find that your candidate then loses. ‘Vote for the candidate you support is what I have been saying on my side of the argument.’
Speaking ahead of the vote, Mr Stewart told reporters the former defence secretary Gavin Williamson, who is organising Mr Johnson’s campaign, was encouraging Johnson-supporting MPs to lend their votes to other candidates to manipulate the contest in a bid to determine who he would face in the final run-off.
He told reporters: ‘There’s also the dark arts. Gavin Williamson’s proxy votes, which we don’t know about.
‘There are dark arts in politics and they’re done with proxy votes, they’re not done with someone saying ‘would you please vote for this person’.’
Ms Rudd told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘I find all this conversation about lending votes rather discrediting of the system.
‘I would really call on Boris himself to repudiate the information that is coming out of ‘friends of Boris’, saying this, saying one thing.’
Ms Rudd, who backs Jeremy Hunt in the race for Downing Street, added: ‘This is a serious moment. We don’t need that sort of game playing going on in Parliament.’
Philip Hammond will today urge Mr Johnson to keep open the option of a second referendum to break the Brexit deadlock and pledge to ‘fight’ against No Deal.
In a pessimistic intervention, the Chancellor will warn that the next Prime Minister will not be able to secure a better deal with the European Union and MPs will block any attempt at a No Deal exit.
Mr Hammond will signal his agreement with Mr Stewart that Mrs May’s deal is the best the EU will offer.
As a result, ‘other democratic mechanisms’ may be needed. Allies said he was suggesting either a general election or second referendum.
The remarks, due to be made today in his annual Mansion House speech to senior bankers and financiers in the City of London, will make Mr Hammond the most senior Conservative to endorse the idea of a second vote on Brexit – and will enrage hardline Tory Brexiteers.
They will be seen as a suggestion he could help to bring down a Boris led-government if it sought to pursue No Deal, by backing Labour in a confidence vote.
Calling on all the candidates to be ‘honest with the public’ Mr Hammond will urge them to set out an alternative if their plan A is ‘undeliverable’.
He will say: ‘If the new Prime Minister cannot end the deadlock in Parliament, then he will have to explore other democratic mechanisms to break the impasse.
Because if he fails, his job will be on the line – and so, too, will the jobs and prosperity of millions of our fellow citizens.’
The Chancellor will say that the parliamentary arithmetic will not change unless there is an election, Parliament will block No Deal, and will not support the withdrawal deal as it stands.
As the domestic drama raged, the challenge facing the next PM was underlined by comments from Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte.
Ahead of an EU summit in Brussels today, Mr Rutte said the next prime minister needs to realise Brexit would ‘diminish’ the UK and No Deal would be even worse.
With a hard Brexit, even with a normal Brexit, the UK will be a different country,’ he told the Today programme.
‘It will be a diminished country. It is unavoidable.’
Mr Gove and Mr Johnson’s time at Oxford University overlapped – and that is where their rivalry goes back to
Boris Johnson (pictured at his London home today) is guaranteed to make the final two in the Tory leader contest – with Jeremy Hunt and Michael Gove fighting over who will take him on
Tory leadership candidates threaten to BOYCOTT BBC TV debate after the corporation failed to vet imam who made anti-Semitic comments
Tory leadership hopefuls were today threatening to boycott a BBC TV debate after the first showdown descended into a shambles.
The special programme featuring five would-be PMs has been widely condemned after it emerged one of the ‘ordinary voters’ posting questions was an imam who had previously posted vile tweets about Israel.
Another was a former Labour staffer. There was also fury about the format – which contenders complained made them look like an aging boyband – and how presenter Emily Maitlis weighted into the exchanges.
The debacle has cast serious doubt on a proposed Question Time-style debate between the final two, which would be hosted by Fiona Bruce.
Tory leadership hopefuls are threatening to boycott a BBC TV debate after the first showdown (pictured) descended into a shambles
A source on Johnson’s team said the controversy ‘hasn’t helped the case’, while other campaigns also warned that they would be looking more carefully at what was put forward. ‘It’s got to be better than that,’ one said.
Julian Knight, a Conservative member of the culture select committee, said: ‘People look up to the BBC but the format and editorial failings were such that they actually produced a much worse debate than Channel 4.
‘The greats of the past like Robin Day and Richard Dimbleby will be doing full 360 degree spins in their graves at this shambolic execution by the BBC.’
James Cleverly, a Brexit minister who is supporting Mr Johnson’s campaign, tweeted: ‘I love and value the BBC, but stuff like this makes it really hard to defend you from critics. Didn’t you think it relevant to inform viewers that Aman (one of the members of the public who asked a question to the candidates during the programme) had been Labour Party staff?’
BBC chiefs refused requests from Tory leadership candidates for lecterns to stand behind during the television debate.
The contenders appeared uncomfortable as they sat awkwardly on high stools for the duration of the hour-long showdown.
Ahead of the debate, the candidates had asked the BBC for lecterns but were told it was too late to change the set.
A source on one of the campaign teams revealed that as they left the studio they were shocked to discover a line-up of lecterns outside that could have been used.
The source said: ‘The candidates were left bewildered as they looked like an old boy band on stools rather than future prime ministers.’
One campaign source added: ‘The BBC could not even manage the basic task of vetting just 12 individuals, allowing an anti-Semite and a Labour employee to grill Tory leadership candidates. It is beyond incompetent. I think all of the candidates would expect an apology.’
The BBC is planning to hold a Question Time special with the final two candidates in the last few weeks of the contest.
It also wants them to take part in one-on-one interviews with Andrew Neil.
Both ITV and Sky News have put forward their own proposals for head-to-head debates with the last two contenders.
ITV has offered a prime time slot for the programme that will be hosted by news presenter Julie Etchingham. Kay Burley will front the Sky News show.
A BBC spokesman last night declined to comment on the request for lecterns.
‘Wrong on every level’: Furious Brexiteers turn on Chancellor Philip Hammond as he backs second referendum as option to break deadlock and vows to ‘fight and fight’ against No Deal
Tory Eurosceptic MPs have attacked Philip Hammond as the Chancellor prepares to use a speech this evening to urge the next prime minister to consider holding a second Brexit referendum.
The Chancellor is expected to tell City of London chiefs that Theresa May’s deal remains the best way for the UK to leave the EU in an orderly fashion.
He will suggest that if that deal cannot get through Parliament then Mrs May’s successor will have to consider ‘other democratic mechanisms’ to resolve the impasse.
He will also vow to ‘fight and fight’ against No Deal in comments seen as a direct challenge to Boris Johnson, the frontrunner to be the next Tory leader, who has suggested he would take the UK out of the EU on October 31 with or without an agreement.
Chancellor Philip Hammond (pictured) will urge Boris Johnson to keep the option of a second EU referendum open to break Brexit deadlock
But the intervention has sparked fury among Tory Brexiteers who are vehemently opposed to holding a second referendum.
Simon Clarke, a Conservative Eurosceptic MP, said: ‘This is wrong on every level. Wrong because it would shatter faith in politics.
‘Wrong because it would usher in a ruinous Government led by Jeremy Corbyn.
‘And wrong because it would not bring resolution to the issue – if a second referendum, why not a third? Terrible.’
