LONDON, June 11 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Ten candidates were nominated in the contest to succeed Theresa May as Conservative Party leader and prime minister, the party’s 1922 Committee said on Monday.
The candidates include frontrunner former foreign minister Boris Johnson, his successor Jeremy Hunt, environment minister Michael Gove, former Brexit minister Dominic Raab, health minister Matt Hancock and interior minister Sajid Javid.
The other candidates are international development minister Rory Stewart, former minister Esther McVey, former leader of the House of Commons Andrea Leadsom and Conservative lawmaker Mark Harper.
May stepped down as leader of the ruling Conservative Party on Friday, having failed three times to win parliament’s support for a European Union divorce deal that was supposed to steer the country smoothly out of the bloc and deal with Britain’s biggest political crisis in a generation.
The first round of voting among Conservative lawmakers to begin whittling down the field to two candidates, who will then be put to a vote of party members, will take place on Thursday.
The 10 candidates launched their campaigns on Monday promising to solve the turmoil of Brexit and taking shots at frontrunner Boris Johnson.
The public campaign launches on Monday all set out domestic agendas, but it was Brexit that dominated, with overt and thinly-veiled digs at former foreign minister Johnson.
Nearly all the hopefuls promised they could solve the Brexit conundrum – which eluded May in three years of EU talks – in just three months, between the new leader being chosen at the end of July and the current exit date of Oct 31. — NNN-AGENCIES
