For the last decade, the Tory party at Westminster has been keenly alive to the fact that the final say in the next leadership contest would rest with a relatively small and unusually rightwing membership. Some of this may have gone on at the margins, as Michael Gove’s supporters will doubtless believe after Mr Hunt narrowly edged him out in the fifth round. The overall conclusion is that, in the absence of a more compelling centre-right option, the Tory party has made another significant slide to the hard-Brexit right. Mr Johnson is a chancer, not a strategist. This may soon cause fresh miseries for the Tory party and – just possibly – the chance of a less deluded and damaging outcome for the country.

Source: The Guardian June 20, 2019 17:48 UTC