LONDON — The juggernaut rolled on for Britain’s former foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, on Tuesday when he widened his already dominant lead among Conservative lawmakers in the second of several ballots to choose a leader destined to become the country’s next prime minister.
But Mr. Johnson, the front-runner and a hard-line Brexit supporter, received an unexpected jolt when his most vocal critic, the maverick international development secretary, Rory Stewart, survived the ballot, keeping him — against all odds at the outset of the contest — in the race.
Written off as a no-hoper, Mr. Stewart is now the challenger with momentum, thanks to an unorthodox campaign that has reached out to centrist opinion, raising issues uncomfortable for many Conservative lawmakers and supporters. For one thing, Mr. Stewart has promised not to serve in a government led by Mr. Johnson, who is a divisive figure, and has felt free to question his reliability and grip of detail.
In the latest ballot, Mr. Johnson received 126 votes, ahead of Jeremy Hunt, the current foreign secretary with 46, Michael Gove, the environment secretary with 41, Mr. Stewart with 37, Sajid Javid, the home secretary with 33, and Dominic Raab, a former Brexit secretary with 30.
Mr. Raab was eliminated from the contest ahead of the next ballot, which is scheduled for Wednesday.
Under the party’s rules the top two contenders will be chosen by 313 Conservative lawmakers by the end of Thursday at the latest, with the final decision being made by the party’s 150,000 or so activists, who are mainly right-wing and disproportionately aging and pro-Brexit.
So by rights, Mr. Stewart, who refuses to countenance the economic gamble of leaving the European Union without an agreement with the bloc, and who defends a Brexit plan already rejected by Parliament three times, should be dead in the water.
Instead, he appears to be picking up votes from those who, like him, doubt Mr. Johnson’s suitability for the post of prime minister.
Both men share the same elite education at Eton College, Britain’s most famous private school, and Balliol College at Oxford University, but their politics are far apart.
Charismatic, entertaining and often shambolic, Mr. Johnson was the figurehead for the Leave forces in the 2016 Brexit referendum that triggered three years and counting of political turmoil.
Most analysts think that, with the Conservatives now facing a fierce challenge from the right in Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party, Mr. Johnson’s campaign is unstoppable. His hard-line stance on Brexit equips him to take on Mr. Farage’s new right-wing insurgents, and Mr. Johnson’s campaigning skills also make him the man to beat the leader of the opposition Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, the argument goes.
If he can make the shortlist of two, something that now seems assured, Mr. Johnson should have one foot in Downing Street. He is wildly popular among Conservative Party activists who will make the final choice and who desperately want to leave the European Union as soon as possible. Mr. Johnson promises that Britain will leave on Oct. 31 when the next Brexit deadline expires, although he is rather vague as to how this would happen.
For Mr. Stewart, who was promoted to the cabinet only last month, even to make it to the final shortlist of two would be a spectacular achievement, yet his prospects are growing, according to the bookmakers.
Mr. Johnson has been accused of hiding from scrutiny after ducking a TV debate with his opponents and another face-to-face with political reporters, and his complicated personal life has also been used by opponents to question his reliability and trustworthiness.
After Matthew Parris, a commentator and former Conservative lawmaker, asked on a BBC radio show how many children Mr. Johnson has, the issue has bubbled along without resolution. When Mr. Johnson failed to show up on Sunday at a Channel 4 debate with the other candidates, some articles joked caustically that it was Father’s Day in Britain and that he had many other places to be.
While other contenders have been more inclined in recent days to temper criticism of Mr. Johnson — probably calculating that they will want a cabinet job from him soon — Mr. Stewart has gone the other way.
He worries that Mr. Johnson has somehow won the support both of lawmakers determined to leave the European Union at the end of October — with or without a deal — and of those who oppose quitting without any agreement. That, he says, suggests that Mr. Johnson is making very different promises to different people, something that could come back to haunt him in office.
Mr. Stewart has had his own awkward moments. When asked on Monday whether he had worked for the British intelligence agency MI6, he replied “no.” Subsequently, however, he was forced to admit that, had he done so, he would not be permitted to admit it publicly.
The son of a senior British intelligence officer, Mr. Stewart was briefly a tutor to Prince William and Prince Harry before becoming a diplomat. He walked 6,000 miles alone across Iran, Pakistan and part of Afghanistan, and wrote a well-received book, “The Places in Between.”
Other contenders have largely run conventional campaigns, lobbying lawmakers in Parliament, staging news conferences, promising tax cuts and appearing for the seemingly obligatory pictures in jogging gear.
But Mr. Stewart has tried to appeal to voters through social media and walking tours, and made a virtue of his honesty in admitting that extracting Britain from the European Union is a difficult task with no easy answers.
While he has no particularly persuasive solution to the Brexit riddle that defeated Prime Minister Theresa May, he at least acknowledges the fact, deriding other contenders who argue that it might be necessary to suspend Parliament in order to do so.
His campaign launch, in a large circus tent on the south bank of the Thames, was one of the most energetic and unusual events staged by any Conservative politician in recent memory, surprising both in its scope and its tone.
Mr. Stewart dismissed calls for a no deal Brexit with practical examples of the devastating impact it could have on farmers in his constituency.
Later, when asked by a transgender questioner how to tackle discrimination, he replied with a phrase not often heard in Conservative Party meetings: “I’m afraid, it’s about love.”
Source : Nytimes
