Tory leadership front-runner and former foreign secretary Boris Johnson has been attacked by his fellow contenders for putting tax cuts for the rich at the center of his campaign, as rival Jeremy Hunt threatens Johnson’s lead with fresh backing from two senior ministers.
On Monday, Johnson announced a plan to stop charging the U.K.’s highest rate of income tax, 45%, to people earning between £50,000 and £80,000 a year, prompting his rivals to accuse him of allowing the Tories to be depicted as the “party of privilege”, the Times reported.
According to the Times, environment secretary Michael Gove, former Brexit minister Dominic Raab and foreign secretary Hunt all denounced Johnson’s tax giveaway.
Hunt, meanwhile, is picking up momentum in the contest—though Johnson is still reckoned front-runner.
Both work and pensions secretary Amber Rudd and defense secretary Penny Mordaunt backed Hunt’s leadership bid at his official campaign launch on Monday, Sky News reported.
Mordaunt said that she trusted Hunt, who supported Remain during the 2016 referendum, in an endorsement that he hopes will bolster his support among MPs and grass roots members, the Times reported.
The Tory leadership race also had its first casualty on Monday, after former universities minister Sam Gyimah found himself unable to secure the eight nominations needed to enter the first round of the contest. 10 of the 11 candidates successfully secured enough backing to continue their bids.
According to the Guardian, the candidates haven’t been met with open arms by the European Union. Jean-Claude Piris, a former head of the European Council’s legal service, said “people in Brussels are fed up that the political class in the U.K. has gone a little bit crazy.”
As for favorite Johnson, an EU source said “the idea of Boris Johnson in the European Council is probably quite abhorrent to some EU leaders”. The source added “Boris is known in foreign policy circles, certainly not respected. He’s also seen as part of a wider Trump world and no one wants that.”
Elsewhere, France’s state secretary for European affairs Amélie de Montchalin has confirmed that the EU27 aren’t prepared to reopen the Brexit withdrawal agreement, as many of the more strongly pro-Brexit leadership contenders want, the Guardian also reported.
Montchalin said that without a “new political line” in the U.K. or a second referendum, Britain should expect to leave the EU on October 31.
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