The former Foreign Secretary praised the PM but repeatedly dodged questions about whether he was gearing up for another Tory leadership bid as party prepares for its annual conference
BORIS Johnson has refused four times to rule out standing against Theresa May if she won’t dump her Chequers plan for Brexit.
The former Foreign Secretary praised the Prime Minister but repeatedly dodged questions about whether he was gearing up for another Tory leadership bid.
It comes as he blasted Mrs May’s Brexit blueprint and outlined his own “Super Canada” arrangement in today's Telegraph.
Meanwhile the party prepares for its annual conference, with a host of senior figures on manoeuvres to try and dislodge Mrs May amid anger about how the negotiations with the EU are going.
Mr Johnson, the bookies' favourite to take over, is doing just one fringe event this week - but it is set to be one of the standout moments of the gathering in Birmingham..
Ahead of that he spoke to the BBC, whose political editor accused him of using his article to “stir up trouble”, saying the piece “is really about your own ambition”.
He denied this was the case before Ms Kuenssberg said he could end the speculation he was planning another tilt at the top job by ruling out a leadership bid.
Mr Johnson swerved the question and responded: “I'm doing this, I want to be absolutely clear, I'm doing this because, I resigned from her Cabinet because I could not see how I could not see how I could support an arrangement I don’t think is in this country's economic or political interest.”
But she, pressed him, asking: “Would you rule out a bid for the leadership would you rule out challenging Theresa May?”
Again failing to answer directly, he said: “What I want, and I think I speak for the overwhelming majority of my parliamentary colleagues in this, what I want is to see the Prime Minister our prime minister get back to the ideas that she outlined at Lancaster House and which are still part of her vision.”
She gave it a third try, asking: “If she doesn’t budge do you rule out challenging her?”
Mr Johnson replied: “My job is to speak up for what I believe in and the vision that I’ve set out today and I believe in it very very sincerely and you know, I'm going to keep going for as long as it takes.”
Ms Kuenssberg tried one last time, saying: “People hear though, you not ruling out challenging her if she doesn’t’ change her mind??”
However the ex-Mayor of London would not tackle the question directly, instead answering: “The Prime Minister will go on.
“What she as she said to us herself, and as she said to the country. She’s a remarkable person, she will go on for as long as, as she feels it necessary.”
Elsewhere in the interview though he did not say that he would definitely vote down the PM’s Chequers deal if it was brought back from Brussels for sign off by Parliament,
Mr Johnson said: “We will have to see. At the moment, I cannot see how I can support Chequers.”
It comes after one of his former Foreign Office colleagues, the Europe Minister Alan Duncan, delivered damning criticism of his attempts to be PM.
He told the : “Publicity is his cocaine. He needs a regular fix. And he equates getting publicity with having political power and authority and respect.
“But I think what he doesn’t realise is that whereas he used to be an electoral asset, that is now waning.”
Of the suggestion he could win a leadership contest, Mr Duncan raged: “Total, total rubbish. This is a fiction of journalistic imagination.
“And it’s simply not true. It’s just not borne out amongst any colleagues you talk to, when they sort of talk to the activists. It’s just a total myth.”
The minister also said his job was to “make sure that the Conservative party is not turned into the mutant child of Ukip”, which he said was where the ERG group of hard Brexiteers led by Jacob Rees-Mogg was taking it.
BORIS Johnson said he stands by his comments about women who wear the burka – calling the controversy round them “confected indignation”.
He said over the last 25 years “you will find innumerable instances of things I was supposed to have said, blurted out, infelicities of expression, political incorrectitude of one kind or another”.
But speaking to Sky News he claimed for every single one “I’m trying to say something radically different from what people impute, and what I would ask your viewers to do is actually to go and look at the articles concerned.”
Pushed about calling those who ear a full face veil “bank robbers” and “letter boxes”, he added: “As I say I stand by what I wrote.
“I urge my friends and colleagues to look carefully at what I wrote.
“I think you’ll find invariably that there is an element of confected indignation about things that I’ve said that are wrenched out of context and in this particular context.”
In the interview he also said he stood by his description of Theresa May’s Chequers Brexit plan as “wrapping a suicide vest wrapped around Britain”.
