The UK’s leadership contest was yesterday rocked by reports that police were called to a late-night “row” between front-runner Boris Johnson and his partner, just hours before campaigning opened to win over grassroots Conservatives.
The Guardian said officers were alerted early on Friday after a neighbor said there had been a loud altercation involving screams, shouts and bangs at the south London property, shortly after the former British secretary of state for foreign and commonwealth affairs had secured his place in the final run-off to become British prime minister.
The paper said that Johnson’s girlfriend Carrie Symonds could be heard telling the former London mayor to “get off me” and “get out of my flat.”
Photo: AP
London Metropolitan Police said it responded to a call from a local resident, but that “all occupants of the address ... were all safe and well.”
Johnson is the runaway favorite to beat British Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Jeremy Hunt, but would face questions over the incident when he and Hunt start a month-long nationwide tour to win over the grassroots Conservatives, who have the final say.
Whoever takes the Conservative Party leadership in the week beginning July 22 — and therefore becomes prime minister — would then face the looming Brexit deadline of Oct. 31.
The battle is likely to feature pledges from both contenders to take the UK out of the EU safely and in one piece, succeeding where outgoing British Prime Minister Theresa May repeatedly failed.
However, the race might ultimately turn into a popularity contest between Johnson — pugnacious, but affable with a tendency for gaffes — and the more diplomatic, low-key Hunt.
The “row” was splashed across the front pages of most newspapers yesterday and while bookmakers were still betting for Johnson, pundits said the incident could harm his chances.
“Much will depend on the next 24 hours and whether the audio said to have been recorded by a concerned neighbor emerges,” the Times newspaper said. “At the very least it will ensure a leadership race that had started to look like a formality might in fact be something of more consequence.”
After the lawmakers whittled down the original field of 13, it is now up to the 160,000 or so paid-up Conservative members to select the center-right party’s next leader.
According to Times commentator Matthew Parris, the group comprises “classic shire Tories,” as well as poorer urban workers who are anti-European and more populist in their views.
The winner would need to succeed in pushing a deal with the EU through parliament, or face the prospect of leaving without a deal, which lawmakers have warned could collapse the government and trigger a general election.
With arch-Brexiteer Nigel Farage’s new Brexit Party ahead in the polls, Johnson is widely viewed as the one Conservative who could compete in the party’s heartlands.
A poll for the Daily Telegraph — for which Johnson writes a column — showed six out of 10 Brexit Party backers jumping over to the Conservatives should the man known simply as Boris take charge.
Hunt and Johnson were yesterday to appear in Birmingham, England, for the first of 16 “hustings” — occasionally rowdy events where candidates field audience questions — three days before the third anniversary of the Brexit vote.
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