Tory leadership race: Hunt goads Johnson for missing debate, after frontrunner renews 31 October Brexit pledge
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Jeremy Hunt has goaded Boris Johnson for pulling out of a television debate as the Tory leadership candidates hit the campaign trail hard.
Meanwhile, Mr Hunt said he would instead hold a question-and-answer session on Twitter.
Earlier, Mr Johnson again declined to discuss in detail a late-night quarrel at his home, saying it was “simply unfair” to “drag” his loved ones into the political arena in an interview with the BBC.
After Mr Hunt accused him of ducking public scrutiny, Mr Johnson has a flurry of broadcast interviews and visits in the south east planned for Tuesday.
A spokesman from his camp claimed: “We’re definitely stepping it up.”
Biggest lies told by Boris Johnson
Show all 5After days avoiding journalists’ questions, the former foreign secretary sought to get his campaign back on track, declaring he would deliver Brexit by the Halloween deadline “do or die”.
Mr Hunt, meanwhile, hit back at his rival, dismissing 31 October as a “fake deadline” which would more likely result in a general election which could hand the keys of No 10 to Jeremy Corbyn.
The foreign secretary suggested Mr Johnson would be unable to win the trust of other EU leaders to successfully negotiate a new Brexit deal with Brussels.
In a letter to his rival, Mr Johnson said the “central question” in the leadership contest was the issue of whether the next prime minister would commit to leaving the EU by 31 October.
“If we fail to deliver once again, the consequences for our party and our country will be devastating,” he said. “We must not kick the can down the road again. The British people have had enough of being left in limbo.”
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Britain’s most senior police officer has said it was right for Boris Johnson’s neighbours to call the police to a domestic disturbance at his home, writes Lizzie Dearden.
Metropolitan Police commissioner Cressida Dick said officers were “called about the welfare of people” inside the London flat in the early hours of Friday morning.
“We called, we spoke to both people and there was no cause for us to take any further action,” she told LBC radio.
Sir Alan Duncan is backing Jeremy Hunt for Tory leader "for the good of the country", he told MPs.
The minister of state for Europe and the Americas during Commons Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs questions: "I'm very happy to join [Emily Thornberry] in congratulating [Mr Hunt] in reaching the final two and indeed reaching the final one, that is what we look forward to for the good of the country."
UK car makers have called on the next prime minister to strike a Brexit deal, saying failing to do so would cost the industry £50,000 a minute just as a result of delays at the border, writes Olesya Dmitracova.
The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) issued its warning against hard Brexit as it published a comprehensive report into the UK’s car industry, the country’s single biggest exporter of goods.
The trade body said delays to shipments of parts to production plants are measured in minutes and could amount to as much as £70m a day in costs. Combined with World Trade Organization tariffs, which would kick in if Britain crashed out of the European Union, “this would deliver a knockout blow to the sector’s competitiveness”.
Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith has been appointed as Boris Johnson's new campaign chairman.
The ex-work and pensions secretary will work closely with James Wharton, who ran the campaign to win votes among Tory MPs, and political strategist Mark Fullbrook.
Here's our full story.
Foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt has said “cannot envisage” any scenario in which the UK would agree to join the US in waging war against Iran, writes Adam Forrest.
The Tory leadership hopeful told MPs in the Commons that the Foreign Office is “very concerned about the situation in the Middle East and the risks of an accidental war” as the feud between Washington and Tehran escalates.
“The US is our closest ally, we talk to them the whole time, we consider any requests that they say carefully, but I cannot envisage any situation where they request or we agree to any moves to go to war,” Mr Hunt told parliament.
There has been a "far-right takeover" of the Conservative Party while the "far left" has grasped control of Labour, Ed Davey has claimed.
"We're seeing two Brexit parties, two extremist parties ... now's an opportunity for the Liberal Democrats not just to win the European elections and local elections, but to win at national, general elections," he said in a television interview.
The Liberal Democrat former energy secretary was attempting to persuade Sky News that his party would not require the support of other Remain-leaning parties to gain power under his leadership.
"I'm happy to work with others for common goals, to stop Brexit, to tackle the climate," he said, but not enter an alliance with a government led by either Boris Johnson or Jeremy Corbyn.
A wafer-thin majority could put the next PM in peril from day one.
In January 2017 Theresa May enjoyed a huge poll lead over Labour – the most commanding “political honeymoon” of any modern Conservative prime minister – as she marked six months in No 10, writes Ashley Cowburn.
It’s fair to say the new Tory leader – whether it is Boris Johnson or Jeremy Hunt – will see an abrupt end to their own honeymoon shortly after entering office, if they are indeed lucky enough to have one at all.
They will inherit the parliamentary arithmetic that plagued May’s government ever since the snap general election, resulting in three defeats to her Brexit agreement and the halting of any radical domestic reforms.
Germany's leaders would "talk to the last hour" to avoid a no-deal Brexit, the country's ambassador to the UK has said.
Peter Wittig told car manufacturers at a London summit that "we are not giving up on achieving an orderly Brexit", The Guardian reported.
He said: "Even if we have a short window while the new prime minister is in place, we will welcome any idea how to solve that famous backstop issue and we will be willing to work towards a negotiated deal which is long term the only viable and sensible option for Europe."
After Jeremy Hunt has said he would not follow the US into war with Iran, Tehran has said it will abandon more nuclear deal commitments on 7 July.
The country’s secretary of the supreme national security council, Ali Shamkhani, made the announcement on Tuesday, according to the Fars news agency. He said that European signatories to the nuclear deal had not done enough to save it, writes Chiara Giordano.
The 2015 deal requires Iran to curb its nuclear programme in return for the lifting of sanctions – which the US re-imposed after withdrawing from the deal last year.
Boris Johnson doesn't care about Northern Ireland, writes Peter Hain for our Voices opinion section.
It’s now more than 21 years since the people of Northern Ireland voted, by an overwhelming majority, to endorse the Belfast Agreement.
Not every unionist backed it then and I am not interested in rerunning the arguments from those days – but I am sure that the vast majority of people in Northern Ireland, whether unionist, nationalist or neither, would agree they now live in a better place.
That better future came at a heavy price. For many families, the Troubles have left a legacy of grief that no social or economic progress can ever fill.
Those with relatives and friends in the security forces, in particular, know how hard that road was: the senseless murder of young journalist Lyra McKee was a bitter reminder that there still people out there committed to killing the innocent.
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