UK Conservatives Name 10 Candidates for Party Leadership, National Premiership
The list of 10 candidates to replace Theresa May as Conservative Party leader and UK prime minister has been confirmed, the 1922 Committee, formally known as the Conservative Private Members' Committee, announced
The election process is expected to end in the second half of July. May, who stepped down as the Conservative party's leader on Friday, will remain a caretaker prime minister until the new one is elected.
The list of candidates includes former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson; Secretary of State for Environment, food and Rural Affairs Michael Gove; ex-leader of the House of Commons Andrea Leadsom; Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Jeremy Hunt; former Brexit secretary Dominic Raab; Secretary of State for International Development Rory Stewart; Home Secretary Sajid Javid; Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Matthew Hancock; former Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Esther McVey; and member of parliament for the Forest of Dean constituency Mark Harper.
According to bookmakers and political analysts, the leaders of the race are Johnson, Hunt, Raab and Gove.
Candidate debates are focused on the Brexit issue. All promises that candidates are making imply some kind of response from the European Union: agreeing to new negotiations, amending the existing Brexit agreement or agreeing to delay Brexit.
At the same time, the European Union has already made it clear that it will not conduct new negotiations, saying that the agreement is ready and cannot be changed, and that another delay is unwanted. Therefore, the next prime minister will be in exactly the same situation as May was when she left.
Out of all the front-runners, Hunt has the softest position on Brexit. Although he has said that the Conservative Party should either ensure the United Kingdom's exit from the European Union or suffer a crushing defeat in the next general election, he nevertheless supports Brexit with an agreement and believes that he can persuade the European Union to amend the text of the document.
So far, he has also refused to exclude the possibility of postponing Brexit further and said that, if there are no other options, would withdraw the United Kingdom without an agreement.
On the other hand, Food Secretary Gove, who recently became marred in a scandal after admitting that he had used cocaine in the past, is ready to delay Brexit in order to get a better agreement from the European Union.
Javid supports leaving the European Union with an agreement but has also stated the need to prepare for a no-deal Brexit. He, like Hunt, is against delaying the Brexit deadline. On the issue of Northern Ireland the Irish border issue has been the main stumbling block in the Brexit talks he offered his own solution to the problem, albeit without giving many details: a new "digitized" Irish border that "could be done in a couple of years.
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Harper is in favor of delaying Brexit because he believes that there is not enough time to renew negotiations and ratify the agreement in the parliament. Harper supports Brexit with an agreement but does not exclude the no-deal scenario.
Hancock is on his own in standing against a divorce scenario without an agreement and therefore does not exclude the possibility of the United Kingdom remaining in the bloc. He is in favor of a free trade agreement and promises to push the European Union toward adding a time limit to the backstop, which is the term used to refer to agreements ensuring a free border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
Johnson supports a withdrawal by October 31, with or without an agreement, but admits that a no-deal scenario will result in some unpleasant consequences. He proposed to change the agreement with the bloc in terms of Northern Ireland, and to withhold the 39 billion pound ($49.7 billion) Brexit payment to the European Union until "we have greater clarity about the way forward."
Raab advocates a "hard Brexit," which entails an agreement that will see the United Kingdom leave the EU customs union and free market. According to him, withdrawing from the EU and leaving on World Trade Organization terms "is far better than leaving with a fatally flawed deal." He even refused to rule out suspending parliament before October 31 to ensure a deal gets through.
Leadsom supports a "controlled exit" from the European bloc. She promised to submit bills before the parliament on the rights of Europeans living in the United Kingdom and to hold talks with the European Union about the measures to achieve a "controlled exit."
McVey supports no deal, believing that the United Kingdom should say goodbye to the European Union as soon as possible, but is ready to listen to the bloc's proposals.
Apparently, Stewart decided to continue May's course and try persuading parliamentarians to approve the agreement with the European Union.
The first round of voting among Conservative Party members will take place on June 13. The candidates who get less than 5 percent of the vote will leave the race. To get to the second round, candidates will need at least 10 percent of the vote. The next rounds will be held on June 19 and June 20, after which the candidates with the least number of votes will be eliminated. The final race will be between the two top candidates. Tories will give their final votes through mail ballots and choose the future prime minister.