The contest to replace Theresa May as Britain’s next leader formally began on Monday, with candidates lining up to define themselves against the "bluff and bluster" of frontrunner Boris Johnson. “A serious moment calls for a serious leader,” Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt declared at his campaign launch, a thinly veiled jibe at his jocular predecessor. Former Brexit minister Dominic Raab meanwhile warned that Britain's EU exit would not happen with “bluff and bluster”. Mr. Johnson has won praise from US President Donald Trump for threatening to walk away with no deal at all. He claimed at the weekend that he had received encouraging signals for renegotiating the Brexit deal from German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Source: The Hindu June 10, 2019 13:52 UTC