Bloomberg: Johnson and Hunt go head-to-head in race to be next UK leader

20 June 2019

The public face of Brexit, Boris Johnson, will fight former Remainer and Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt to become Britain’s next prime minister in a critical contest for the country and the European Union.

The pair will spend the next month battling for votes among the 160,000 grassroots members of the U.K.’s ruling Conservative Party, after Environment Secretary Michael Gove was knocked out of the contest Thursday evening. The winner will be announced in late July.

The run-off comes after five rounds of voting among the party’s members of Parliament whittled down a field of 10 candidates last week to the final pair Thursday. Johnson won the votes of 160 of his colleagues, compared with Hunt’s 77. Gove scored 75.

Suspicions were raised of vote lending because Johnson increased his tally in the final round by just three, even though at least four MPs who had earlier supported Home Secretary Sajid Javid, said they would switch to Johnson. [...]

Full article on Bloomberg

Related article on Bloomberg: No-Deal Brexit Takes Center Stage in Battle to Be U.K. Premier

© Bloomberg