Boris Johnson handily won the race to lead the Conservative Party on last night.
Johnson captured 92,153 votes to Hunt’s 46,656 – a dominant victory that shows Tories want a leader who promises, above all else, to deliver Brexit.
Now, the transfer of power in London will happen quickly.
The opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn didn’t let the hour pass before firing his first salvo, saying, “Boris Johnson has won the support of fewer than 100,000 unrepresentative Conservative Party members by promising tax cuts for the richest, presenting himself as the bankers’ friend, and pushing for a damaging No Deal Brexit. But he hasn’t won the support of our country.”
Corbyn said that a no-deal Brexit “would mean job cuts, higher prices in the shops, and risk our NHS being sold off to US corporations in a sweetheart deal with Donald Trump. The people of our country should decide who becomes the Prime Minister in a General Election.”
In his remarks Tuesday, Johnson said Britain was at a crossroads in his relations with Europe. “We again have to reconcile two sets of instincts, two noble sets of instincts. Between the deep desire of friendship and free trade and mutual support in security and defense between Britain and our European partners,” Johnson said. “And the simultaneous desire, equally deep and heartfelt, for democratic self-government in this country.”
Johnson noted that many say that the two desires cannot be reconciled.
Facing Johnson is same math in the House of Commons that defeated May’s Brexit deal three times. The incoming prime minister will have a paper-thin working majority, protected by the Democratic Unionist Party in Northern Ireland.
As Brexit churns on, the Persian Gulf crisis threatens. The Iranians seized the British-flagged vessel (with an international crew, no Britons aboard) after Britain took an Iranian tanker in the Gibraltar Strait that London said was heading toward Syria.
Johnson doesn’t have the best track record of diplomacy with Iran.
in Monday’s Telegraph, Johnson said, “it is time this country recovered some its can-do spirit.” He said that if the Americans could land men on the moon 50 years ago using hand-knit bits of computer code, then 21st century Britain could imagine a way to provide for frictionless trade across the Northern Irish border, which has been one of the stumbling blocks of the Brexit deal.
SORUCE : New Zealand Herald
