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Boris keen to replace May over Brexit debacle

Boris Johnson, Britain’s former foreign minister and a prominent campaigner to leave the European Union, has reportedly said he will stand as a candidate to replace Prime Minister Theresa May as Conservative leader.

May 17, 2019, updated May 17, 2019
Pro-Brexit campaigner Boris Johnson is ready to stand as Conservative leader if Theresa May falls on her sword. Photo: AP/Matt Dunham

Pro-Brexit campaigner Boris Johnson is ready to stand as Conservative leader if Theresa May falls on her sword. Photo: AP/Matt Dunham

May has said she will step down before the next phase of Brexit negotiations although she has not yet put a date on her departure.

“Of course I’m going to go for it,” Johnson told The British Insurance Brokers’ Association, according to the BBC.

Johnson resigned from the cabinet in July in protest at May’s handling of Brexit.

The face of the 2016 Brexit campaign, Johnson set out his pitch to the membership in a speech at the party’s annual conference in October. Some members queued for hours to get a seat.

He called on the party to return to its traditional values of low tax, strong policing and not to follow the policies of the left-wing Labour Party.

Betting odds indicate he is the leading candidate to replace May and has a 28 per cent chance of being the next prime minister.

It comes as Britain’s Labour Party says it will vote against the Withdrawal Agreement Bill if there is no deal between it and the government.

After failing to get parliament’s approval three times for Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit deal, the government will now put the bill, legislation which will enact that deal, before parliament for a vote in early June.

“I want to make it clear that Labour opposes the idea of passing the Withdrawal Agreement Bill without an agreed deal … and Labour will vote against a second reading on that basis,” Labor’s Brexit spokesman Keir Starmer told parliament.

Starmer’s comments come as Brexit-supporting rebels in May’s Conservative Party said they’d vote down her EU divorce deal when she brings it back to parliament next month.

The United Kingdom is now scheduled to leave, with or without a deal to smooth the exit, by October 31.

May will bring a Withdrawal Agreement Bill, which implements the departure terms, to parliament for a vote in the week beginning June 3, Brexit Secretary Steven Barclay said.

The vote is due just as US President Donald Trump begins a divisive state visit to Britain.

Conservative MP and Brexit supporter Peter Bone thought the deal had little chance of being passed.

“I have talked to colleagues, some of whom voted for it last time, and they think it is dead and they will vote against it this time,” he told Talk Radio on Wednesday.

“It seems absurd to bring it back. It is the same thing again, again and again.”

May, who became prime minister in the chaos that followed the 2016 referendum in which Britons voted 52 per cent to 48 per cent to leave the EU, is under pressure from some of her own MPs to set a date for her departure.

As well as the Brexit deadlock, the Conservative Party suffered major losses in local elections this month and is trailing in opinion polls ahead of the May 23 European Parliament elections.

May’s spokesman declined to say on Wednesday whether the prime minister would resign if she failed again to win parliamentary support for her Brexit deal.

-AAP

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