Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt will battle to become the next Prime Minister after Michael Gove was eliminated from the Tory leadership contest.

In the final round of voting by MPs Mr Gove was narrowly pipped to the post by Mr Hunt, who won two votes more than his rival and his place on the final ballot with Mr Johnson.

The race now enters its final stage before the party selects who will be its next leader and the country’s next Prime Minister.

What has happened so far?

The race to select the next Prime Minister officially launched on 10 June, after Theresa May stood down as Conservative party leader the week earlier.

Boris Johnson, Jeremy Hunt, Michael Gove, Dominic Raab, Andrea Leadsom, Matt Hancock, Esther McVey, Sajid Javid, Rory Stewart and Mark Harper all accrued enough supporters to be able to enter the race.

Mrs Leadsom, Ms McVey and Mr Harper were eliminated in the first ballot after failing to win enough support to meet the threshold required.

And Matt Hancock, who came sixth in the first vote, announced he was standing down and backing Mr Johnson.

In the second ballot, Mr Raab became the next candidate to be eliminated and he also threw his weight behind Mr Johnson.

On Wednesday, International Development Secretary Rory Stewart scored the lowest number of votes in the third ballot and was also knocked out the race.

And Sajid Javid, Home Secretary, became the seventh candidate to exit the contest after winning the fewest votes in the Thursday lunchtime ballot.

What happens now?

Now that there are only two contenders remaining, Conservative Campaign Headquarters (CCHQ) will begin the membership hustings process for party members to decide between the final two candidates.

Work will be under way immediately and the party will aim for the hustings to take place in all 12 regions of the UK over the course of the next four weeks.

During this time there are more live TV debates planned on BBC and Sky.

The BBC announced plans to hold a Question Time special with Fiona Bruce as well as a one-to-one interview with the final candidates and presenter Andrew Neil.

Sky News also announced plans for a head-to-head leadership debate between the final two in front of an audience of Conservative Party members.

When will we know who is Prime Minister?

During the month of hustings, in which the candidates will seek to persuade party members to back them, the choice will be put to a postal ballot.

This will mean that the entire party membership of 160,000 people will have a vote to decide which candidate they prefer.

The results will be counted and a new leader will be announced during the week beginning 22 July.

After this point, the victor will visit the Queen, who will ask them to form a Government and will formally replace Mrs May as Prime Minister. </s> LONDON, June 20 — Boris Johnson, the front-runner in the race to become Britain’s next prime minister, increased his support among lawmakers in the fourth round of the Conservative Party leadership contest today.

Johnson got 157 out of 313 votes. Environment minister Michael Gove came second with 61 votes, overtaking Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, who got 59 votes.

Interior minister Sajid Javid was fourth with 34 votes and was eliminated from the contest. Two votes were declared invalid.

A fifth ballot later today will determine the final two candidates. Then Conservative Party grassroots members will decide who will become leader, and Britain’s next prime minister, by the end of July. — Reuters </s> • Sajid Javid was eliminated from the race to replace Theresa May as Conservative Party leader and prime minister.
• The home secretary fell out in the fourth round of voting after losing support from Conservative MPs.
• The race for second place behind Boris Johnson is now between Jeremy Hunt and Michael Gove.

LONDON – Sajid Javid has been eliminated from the race to replace Theresa May as Conservative Party leader and prime minister.

The home secretary received fewer votes than his three rivals in a secret ballot on Thursday morning, with support consolidating around Jeremy Hunt and Michael Gove, the two candidates who colleagues believe are best-placed to take on Boris Johnson in the final two.

Boris Johnson once again topped the poll, winning 157 votes from Conservative MPs, while Michael Gove jumped into sceond place with 61 votes. Hunt, who placed second in the first three rounds of voting, placed third with 59 votes.

Two of the votes were spoilt ballots.

A fourth and final round of voting will take place on Thursday evening, where the third-placed candidate will be knocked out. The result is due at around 18.15 GMT.

One from the remaining two candidates will then be selected as the next Conservative leader in July by the party’s 160,000-or-so members.

The winner will be announced on July 22.

Javid, who was seen as an outsider in the leadership race, played a prominent role in the contest, winning plaudits for making all other candidates agree to hold an independent inquiry into Islamophobia in the party if they become prime minister.

He was appointed as Home Secretary in 2018, and has also served as Business Secretary and Culture Secretary. </s> British Conservative party leadership and prime minister contender Boris Johnson leaves his home in south London, Thursday June 20, 2019. The race to become Britain’s next prime minister is down to the final four on Wednesday, as Boris Johnson stretched his lead among Conservative lawmakers and upstart Rory Stewart was eliminated from the contest. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)

LONDON (AP) — The Latest on choosing Britain’s next prime minister (all times local):

Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt will compete to become Britain’s next prime minister in a runoff vote by members of the governing Conservative Party.

Johnson, a former U.K. foreign secretary, and Hunt, who holds that office now, are the last candidates standing after a series of elimination votes by Conservative lawmakers. Home Secretary Sajid Javid and Environment Secretary Michael Gove were culled from the race on Thursday.

Johnson got 160 of the votes cast by 313 Tory lawmakers in the final round, and is strong favorite to win the ballot of some 160,000 party members.

Hunt, who got 77 votes, will seek to halt Johnson’s momentum by picking away at Johnson’s plans for Brexit as the two speak to meetings of party members across the country.

The winner is due to be announced in late July, and will replace Theresa May as party leader and prime minister.

The contest to become Britain’s next prime minister is down to its final three candidates, with Environment Secretary Michael Gove and Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt chasing front-runner Boris Johnson for a spot in a deciding runoff.

Johnson gained 157 of 313 votes cast by Conservative lawmakers Thursday in their fourth round of voting. Gove received 61, leapfrogging Hunt, who has been in second place until now but got 59.

Home Secretary Sajid Javid came fourth with 34 votes and drops out.

A second vote Thursday will select the final two contenders, who will go to a by-mail ballot of all 160,000 Conservative Party members nationwide.

The winner is due to be announced in late July, and will replace Theresa May as party leader and prime minister.

Britain’s governing Conservatives were set to pick two candidates who will square off to become the country’s next prime minister.

Tory lawmakers will vote to eliminate two contenders from a four-strong field that includes ex-foreign minister and London mayor Boris Johnson, current Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, Environment Secretary Michael Gove and Home Secretary Sajid Javid.

Johnson has a commanding lead after three rounds of voting that cut the list from an initial 10 contenders. The three others are battling to join him in a runoff to be decided by 160,000 Conservative Party members nationwide.

All the candidates are vowing to lead Britain out of the European Union, a challenge that defeated outgoing Prime Minister Theresa May. She quit as Conservative leader earlier this month after failing to win Parliament’s backing for her Brexit deal.

The winner of the contest, due to be announced the week of July 22, will become Conservative leader and prime minister.

Follow AP’s full coverage of Brexit and the Conservative Party leadership race at: https://www.apnews.com/Brexit </s> British Conservative party leadership contender Boris Johnson gets in a car as he leaves his home in south London, Tuesday, June 18, 2019. Contenders for leadership in Britain’s ruling Conservative Party to become the next Prime Minister, jostled for attention Monday as the race narrowed into a contest to seize the mantle of challenger to front-runner Boris Johnson. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)

LONDON (AP) — The Latest on the voting to elect Britain’s next prime minister (all times local):

The five men competing to be Britain’s next prime minister are taking part in a televised debate where they traded barbs about who will get Britain out of the European Union fastest.

Front-runner Boris Johnson said during the Tuesday night debate that if Brexit doesn’t happen on the scheduled date of Oct. 31 there would be a “catastrophic loss of confidence in politics.”

Both Johnson and fellow contender Sajid Javid said they would opt to leave the EU without an agreement if Parliament hadn’t ratified a divorce deal by then.

The debate came just hours after Conservative Party lawmakers voted for a second time to winnow to field of candidates competing to replace Theresa May as party leader and British prime minister.

Michael Gove said a no-deal Brexit would cause “economic turbulence” but he wouldn’t rule it out. Jeremy Hunt said “it should only be a very, very last resort.”

Gove and Hunt both said they’d delay Brexit for a short time if needed to secure a deal.

The fifth contender, Rory Stewart, said “there would never be no-deal” if he was prime minister because it would be too damaging to the economy.

Boris Johnson has increased his lead in the race to become Britain’s next prime minister, as one of his rivals was eliminated from the contest.

Five contenders in all were still in the running after a second-round ballot of Conservative lawmakers on Tuesday.

Former Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab failed to reach the threshold of 33 votes needed to go on to the next round.

Tory lawmakers will vote again Wednesday and, if needed, on Thursday. The final two contenders will go to a by-mail ballot of all 160,000 Conservative Party members nationwide.

The winner will replace Theresa May as party leader and prime minister.

Conservative lawmakers in Britain are voting on who should become the party’s next leader and Britain’s next prime minister.

Six contenders, including front-runner Boris Johnson, remained before the vote on Tuesday. At least one will be eliminated in that vote.

All those aiming to replace Prime Minister Theresa May vow they will succeed where May failed and lead Britain out of the European Union, though they differ about how they plan to break the country’s Brexit deadlock.

Johnson, a former foreign secretary, gained backing from 114 of the 313 Tory legislators in the first round of voting.

In Tuesday’s vote, the lowest-placed contender will drop out, along with any who fail to get at least 33 votes.Further rounds of voting are set for Wednesday and Thursday if needed. The final two contenders will go to a postal ballot of about 160,000 Conservative Party members nationwide.

The winner, due to be announced in late July, will become party leader and prime minister.

Follow AP’s full coverage of Brexit and the Conservative Party leadership race at: https://www.apnews.com/Brexit </s> Sajid Javid has become the latest candidate to exit the Conservative party leadership race, with the home secretary coming last in the fourth round of voting by Tory MPs, behind Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and Jeremy Hunt.

With all 313 MPs again casting votes, Mr Johnson was once more the clear winner, on 157 votes, with Mr Gove overtaking Nr Hunt into second place, with 61 votes to 59. Mr Javid was fourth on 34 votes. Two ballots were spoiled.

The focus now shifts to a fifth and final round of votes, in which the final two will be selected, who will be put to a vote of Conservative party members. In effect, this will be a run-off between Mr Gove and Mr Hunt for the right to face Mr Johnson. The result will come at 6pm.

The final two will then undertake a long series of hustings events with party members around the country before the winner takes over from Theresa May as Tory leader and prime minister on July 22nd.

The result is something of a blow for Mr Hunt, with backers of the foreign secretary seeking to immediately rally support for him. Penny Mordaunt, the defence secretary, said Mr Hunt being in the final two would avoid the drama of a new showdown between Mr Johnson and Mr Gove, who fell out over the 2016 leadership battle.

“That doesn’t necessarily mean the best entertainment for journalists, but for people who are going to focus on the issues, the policies, and set out a vision for the party,” she said.

A source in the Hunt camp said: “Boris and Michael are great candidates but we have seen their personal psychodrama before: it’s time to offer the country someone the EU will actually talk to.”

One of the challenges for Mr Johnson will be to convince Tory members he is serious about making Brexit happen on October 31st.

On Thursday Mr Johnson was formally endorsed by London’s Evening Standard, edited by the remain-backing former chancellor George Osborne, with an editorial in the newspaper predicting that Mr Johnson would end up persuading the Commons to “vote for a repacked version of the existing deal”.

In a verdict unlikely to go down well among hard Brexiters – or Mr Johnson’s camp – the editorial noted that he had pointedly not completely guaranteed an exit on October 31st, and was the candidate with the most room to manoeuvre.

Theresa May is travelling to Brussels for a European council summit and will miss the second vote. She has entrusted a proxy vote to Charles Walker, the acting co-chair of the 1922 Committee of backbench Tories, which is organising the contest.

During the two-hour voting process, Mr Javid arrived with a series of MPs who have supported him and they posed for a photo in the corridor near committee room 14, where the voting took place. Mr Javid told reporters only that he was “hopeful” of progressing.

His exit from the race follows that of Rory Stewart, the international development minister, in the third round of voting on Wednesday. – Guardian </s> Brexit campaigner Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt, once an opponent of leaving the European Union who has now promised to exit with a deal, are the final two in the race to replace Prime Minister Theresa May.

 

 Despite a series of scandals in the past and criticism about his attention to detail, Johnson has dominated the race since May announced a month ago that she would step down after failing to get her Brexit deal ratified by parliament.

 

 In a fifth and final ballot of Conservative lawmakers, which eliminated Environment Secretary Michael Gove, Johnson was again way out in front: he won 160 out of 313 votes against Hunt's 77. One ballot paper was rejected.

 

 Johnson, 55, who served as London mayor for eight years, has cast himself as the only candidate who can deliver Brexit on October 31 while fighting off the electoral threats of Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party and Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party.

 

 Johnson has increased his share of the vote of Conservative lawmakers at each of the four ballots so far: 114 out of 313 votes in the first ballot on June 13, 126 on June 18, 143 on Wednesday, and 157 and 160 on Thursday.

 

 Gove was third with 75. Interior minister Sajid Javid was knocked out in the fourth round earlier on Thursday.

Now around 160,000 Conservative Party grassroots members will vote on who will be their leader - and Britain's next prime minister - by the end of July.

 

 Johnson has pledged to leave the European Union on October 31 with or without a deal. The EU has said it will not renegotiate the divorce deal that May agreed last year and the British parliament has indicated it will block a no-deal exit.

 

 He has not addressed how he will solve that riddle. </s> COMBO FILE – In this file four-photo combo image of various recent dates, showing the contenders still placed to become leader of the Conservative Party, Wednesday June 19, 2019, with from left: Michael Gove, Boris Johnson, Jeremy Hunt, Sajid Javid. Rory Stewart has dropped out of the contest Wednesday. Britain’s Conservative Party will continue to hold elimination votes until the final two contenders will be put to a vote of party members nationwide, with the winner due to replace Prime Minister Theresa May as party leader and prime minister. (AP FILE Photo combo)

LONDON (AP) — Britain’s next prime minister will be a man in his 50s who went to Oxford University — either Boris Johnson or Jeremy Hunt, the two finalists selected Thursday in a race to lead the governing Conservative Party.

Johnson , a flamboyant former foreign secretary and ex-mayor of London, topped a ballot of 313 Conservative lawmakers with 160 votes and is runaway favorite to become the party’s next leader. He has led in all five voting rounds of a contest that began last week with 10 contenders.

Hunt , Britain’s current foreign secretary, came a distant second with 77 votes and will join Johnson in a runoff decided by 160,000 party members across Britain.

Johnson tweeted that he was honored to have gotten more than half the votes cast by party lawmakers. He said “I look forward to getting out across the U.K. and to set out my plan to deliver Brexit, unite our country, and create a brighter future for all of us.”

Hunt said on Twitter that he knew he was the underdog “but in politics surprises happen.”

The winner of the runoff, due to be announced the week of July 22, will become the new Conservative leader and the country’s next prime minister, replacing Theresa May.

Hunt edged out Environment Secretary Michael Gove, who got 75 votes, after Home Secretary Sajid Javid was eliminated earlier Thursday.

The result spares Johnson a showdown with Gove, his former ally-turned-archrival. The two men jointly led the “leave” campaign in Britain’s 2016 EU membership referendum, but Gove scuttled Johnson’s subsequent bid to become prime minister by deciding to run for the job himself, in a race ultimately won by May.

This time around, many in the party doubt that anyone can beat 55-year-old Johnson, a quick-witted, Latin-spouting extrovert admired for his ability to connect with voters, but mistrusted for his erratic performance in high office and his long record of inaccurate, misleading and sometimes offensive comments.

“Boris will say absolutely anything in order to please an audience,” historian Max Hastings told the BBC on Thursday. “Boris would have told the passengers on the Titanic that rescue was imminent.”

Hunt, who has been culture secretary and health secretary, is considered an experienced, competent minister, but unexciting. The 52-year-old politician bills himself as the “serious” candidate, in an implicit contrast to Johnson. He will try to halt Johnson’s momentum by picking away at his rival’s plans for Brexit as the two speak to party members at meetings across the country over the next few weeks.

Both Johnson and Hunt vow they will lead Britain out of the European Union, a challenge that defeated May. She quit as Conservative leader earlier this month after failing to win Parliament’s backing for her Brexit deal.

Brexit, originally scheduled to take place on March 29, has been postponed twice amid political deadlock in London.

Johnson has won backing from the party’s die-hard Brexiteers by insisting the U.K. must leave the bloc on the rescheduled date of Oct. 31, with or without a divorce deal to smooth the way.

He also is supported — somewhat paradoxically — by some Tory moderates who claim Johnson has the skills to unite the party and win back voters from rival parties on both the left and the right.

“The essence of Boris Johnson is a unifier,” he said.

Hunt backed the losing “remain” side in the referendum, a disadvantage in a party whose rank-and-file members are overwhelmingly pro-Brexit. Hunt now insists he is determined to go through with Brexit and says his past in business, running an educational publishing firm, gives him the experience to negotiate with the EU.

Hunt says he would seek another postponement of Brexit if that is needed to secure a deal, but only for a short time.

Critics say neither candidate has a realistic plan. The EU is adamant that it won’t reopen the Brexit agreement it struck with May’s government, which has been rejected three times by Britain’s Parliament.

Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said Thursday that “the withdrawal agreement is not going to be reopened.”

He also said there was “enormous hostility to any further extension” of the Brexit deadline among the other 27 EU leaders.

Many economists and businesses warn that leaving the EU without a deal on divorce terms and future relations would cause economic turmoil as tariffs and other disruptions are imposed on trade between Britain and the EU.

U.K. Treasury chief Philip Hammond warned that a no-deal Brexit would put Britain’s prosperity at risk and leave the economy “permanently smaller.”

“The question to the candidates is not ‘What is your plan?’ but ‘What is your Plan B?'” Hammond said in extracts from a speech he was giving Thursday night.

Follow AP’s full coverage of Brexit and the Conservative Party leadership race at: https://www.apnews.com/Brexit </s> This week in Tories: The contest to replace Theresa May as leader of the Conservative Party—and therefore prime minister—has come down to the final two. The overwhelming favorite is former foreign secretary and leading Brexit campaigner Boris Johnson. He’ll be up against current foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt, whose Brexit position is a bit more vague.

Last time we checked in, the leadership contest was down to seven. Matt Hancock dropped out of the race on Friday. In subsequent rounds of voting by MPs held this week, the lowest vote-getters were eliminated: Dominic Raab, Rory Stewart, Sajid Javid, and then Michael Gove were all dismissed in that order. Johnson and Hunt will now face off in a postal vote among the U.K.’s roughly 160,000 Conservative party members—not to be confused with Conservative Party voters—with the winner due to be announced the week of July 22.

The contest was not without accusations of skullduggery.

Johnson has held a commanding lead throughout the process, but the changes in vote totals from round to round suggested that some MPs who supported him were voting tactically, boosting the campaigns of candidates they viewed as weaker opponents. In the last round, for instance, Johnson won only 3 of Javid’s 34 votes—fewer than expected—suggesting that some Johnson backers were boosting Hunt, who as a former Remainer might be a weaker candidate in the final round than Gove.

There’s also a narrative that Johnson was seeking revenge on Gove, who derailed his last leadership bid in 2016. While entertaining, it’s not clear that any of this matters much given Johnson’s overwhelming lead in the polls. Naturally, everyone’s being very chill about it:

This week in what does it all mean?: Since he entered the race, Johnson has been adamant that the U.K. will absolutely, positively, no doubt about it, not ask the EU for another Brexit extension. “If I get in we’ll come out, deal or no deal, on October the 31st,” he has said.

Yeah, but what does he really think?

Johnson’s position has appeared to be softening a bit in the past few days, particularly after the hardest of the hard Brexiteers—Dominic Raab and Andrea Leadsom—were eliminated from the race. In a TV debate on Tuesday night, Johnson avoided Gove’s attempts to pin him down on the question of whether he would leave without a deal rather than try to delay, saying only that “Oct. 31 is eminently feasible.”

I suppose how you interpret that depends on your definition of “eminently.” Johnson wants to reopen debate with Brussels on the withdrawal agreement that May negotiated; in particular, he wants to take out the controversial “Irish backstop” which critics fear could leave the U.K. in a permanent customs union with Europe. European leaders say they’re not interested in negotiating about this. But even assuming they’re more flexible than they’re letting on, it will almost certainly require more time than they’ve allotted. Parliament won’t even be back from its summer recess until September. EU leaders are also making noises about the possibility that they won’t be willing to grant another Brexit delay, but it seems likely they will if the alternative is no-deal.

Another possibility is that Johnson could just negotiate some cosmetic changes to May’s withdrawal agreement and then ram it through Parliament via sheer momentum and charisma. But given that Johnson found the agreement so distasteful that he resigned from the Cabinet over it, this would also be a pretty big flip-flop.

If Johnson is secretly trying to avoid no-deal he’s dug himself a pretty deep political hole to get out of.

This week in Brussels: EU leaders are meeting in Brussels Thursday, and for once it’s not about Brexit. In the wake of the recent European elections, they’re gathered for talks on filling the union’s top positions, including president of the European Commission, president of the European Council, and president of the European parliament. (These are all different things.) Because this is the EU, the process for filling these positions is vague, complicated, drawn out, and involves a passive aggressive dispute between France and Germany. In this case, Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel are at odds over the who should replace Luxembourg’s Jean-Claude Juncker as president of the EU Commission (basically the EU’s civil service), the body’s most powerful job. Under the informal spitzenkandidat system that has governed the past few contests, the job has gone to the “lead candidate” of the bloc with the most seats in the European Parliament.

This time, that’s Manfred Weber of the center-right European People’s Party, who is also a member of Merkel’s party in Germany. Macron argues that spitzenkandidat is not a real thing. This could go on for a while.
In the fifth round of voting, Gove is controversially eliminated. The party membership run-off vote will be between Johnson and Hunt.