The candidates in the Tory leadership battle have clashed in a live BBC TV debate after former Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab was eliminated in the second round of voting.
So who won?
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According to The Times, Rory Stewart was “forced on to the defensive by the other candidates”. However, The Daily Telegraph disagrees, saying the outsider did best from the second televised debate, and now stands out as the “Stop Boris candidate”.
There was little praise for the overall quality of the discussion. The BBC’s Europe editor, Katya Adler, said that “off-the-record” comments she has heard from European leaders on the debate “have not been particularly complimentary”.
Writing in the The Daily Telegraph, Allison Pearson describes the discussion as “the BBC’s excruciating version of Blind Date”.
Earlier, Johnson had attracted the support of 126 MPs in the leadership second ballot, while Dominic Raab dropped out of the race after failing to reach the threshold of 33 votes needed to progress to the next round.
International Development Secretary Rory Stewart took 37 votes, adding another 18 votes from the previous round. All eyes will be on his standing in today’s third round ballot, in which another candidate will be eliminated from the contest.
Brexit dominated the BBC debate. Referring to his insistence that Britain will leave the European Union by 31 October, Johnson described the deadline as “eminently feasible”.
Sajid Javid said sticking to the deadline “focused minds”, while Jeremy Hunt and Michael Gove both agreed that a little extra time might be needed. However, Stewart said his rivals were “staring at the wall and saying ‘believe in Britain’”.
When the discussion ranged beyond Brexit, Johnson seemed to backtrack on his promise of a tax cut for high earners. He said that “what we would bring forward is a package to help primarily the poorest people in society”, adding that it was good to have an “ambition” to raise the higher rate.
Meanwhile, Javid asked his four rivals whether they would all agree to commission an independent review into alleged Islamophobia in the Conservative Party. In one of the more decisive and unexpected moments of the debate, all four agreed.
Tory MPs will vote again today and if necessary tomorrow, until the field is narrowed down to just two candidates. Conservative Party members will then choose the winner in a postal ballot. The final result will be announced in the week beginning 22 July.
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