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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Andrew Sparrow

Boris Johnson finally admits he should have been more supportive towards ambassador in ITV debate - live news

Evening summary

  • Jeremy Hunt, Johnson’s rival in the Tory leadership contest, has refused to rule out delaying Brexit beyond Christmas. (See 6.42pm.)

That’s all from me for tonight.

Thanks for the comments.

Updated

Boris Johnson finally admits he should have been more supportive towards ambassador in ITV debate

Andrew Neil is, of course, a brilliant interviewer, but he seems to have been outdone by an (as yet unnamed) heckler at the Conservative party hustings in Cheltenham tonight.

The hustings started at the same time as the interviews. Most of us were watching the BBC, but at the hustings Boris Johnson was heckled when he tried to dodge a question about whether he should have been more supportive towards Sir Kim Darroch in the ITV debate on Tuesday, and that forced him to admit for the first time that he should have been. The Mirror’s Dan Bloom has the full story. And here is the key quote from Johnson:

Well, I don’t think that anything I said was actually decisive in Kim’s decision to resign.

Had I my time again, to answer your question directly, yes - I probably should have been more emphatic that Kim personally had my full support.

But I was surprised that his tenure as ambassador in Washington should be raised by the foreign secretary as a fitting subject for debate in a Conservative party leadership campaign.

Boris Johnson at the Conservative hustings in Cheltenham
Boris Johnson at the Conservative hustings in Cheltenham Photograph: Peter Nicholls/Reuters

Updated

Andrew Neil interviews - Verdict from Twitter commentariat

This is what political journalists and commentators are saying about the Andrew Neil interview.

Or, rather, what they are saying about how Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt performed. The main theme on Twitter seems to be how good Andrew Neil was.

From the New Statesman’s Stephen Bush

And here is an extract from Bush’s article.

Jeremy Hunt did very well explaining away his many inconsistencies and his helter-skelter Brexit positioning but ultimately his performance here felt like watching a team come from four nil down to grab a point: it’s impressive, yes, but you have to ask yourself what he had done wrong to end up in that position in the first place.

As for Boris Johnson, he did very badly. He had no grip of the detail, struggled to tackle any of the questions about the mistakes he had made or to defend any of his controversial positions.

From HuffPost’s Paul Waugh

From the Spectator’s James Forsyth

From Sky’s Rob Powell

From the Economist’s Adrian Wooldridge

From MLex’s Matthew Holehouse

From the Specatator’s Katy Balls

From the Mail on Sunday’s Dan Hodges

From ITV’s Robert Peston

The BBC’s Reality Check team have been fact-checking some of the claims made in the debate.

And this is from the FT’s Jim Pickard.

My colleague Patrick Wintour, the Guardian’s diplomatic editor, also thinks Boris Johnson was not being honest in his interview tonight in what he said about the Kim Darroch affair.

The Independent’s John Rentoul has got transcripts of both interviews here.

Andrew Neil interviews - Snap verdict

Andrew Neil interviews - Snap verdict: Great for TV viewers, but rather less good for news editors. And, as you would expect, the real winner was Andrew Neil. It is a joy to watch an exceptionally well-briefed interviewer and the most memorable things that were said tonight were probably those said by him. Interviewers are often accused of not having the facts available to contest dodgy claims made by politicians, and it was worth watching the programmes alone just to hear Neil take on Jeremy Hunt’s claims about the merits of cutting corporation tax, or deflate the ‘I cut crime by 20%’ boasts we’ve been hearing about the Boris Johnson mayoralty ad nauseam. And then there was the farcical exchange about paragraph 5C of Gatt article 24. (See 7.56pm). Johnson tried briefly to bluff his way through, but even he know when he was beaten, and he was wise enough to end up answering the question honestly; no, he did not know what was in paragraph 5C.

Faced with this sort of ordeal, the best that candidates can do is play for a draw and both Hunt and Johnson got through their interviews humbled, but without major disaster. Hunt’s worst moment probably came when he refused to rule out delaying Brexit beyond Christmas. Johnson’s came when he was asked about refusing to back Sir Kim Darroch in the ITV debate on Tuesday. To anyone who watched the debate, it was obvious that Johnson was cutting Darroch loose; he refused a very direct invitation to match Hunt’s promise to keep Darroch in post until the end of the year, when he was due to retire, and he refused to offer even the slightest criticism of President Trump. Tonight Johnson claimed that his words had been misrepresented to Darroch, who he said had not watched the debate live, and he insisted that in fact he had been backing the ambassador. Not for the first time, his self-justification sounded dishonest. Is that any longer a surprise? Perhaps what is more telling is the way this suggests Johnson has been rattled by the strong criticism he has received in recent days for his willingness to let such a senior diplomat go at the behest of Trump.

The Johnson camp were probably also relieved that Neil chose not to do an Eddie Mair and focus heavily on character. Johnson came out of the interview looking shallow and evasive, but not especially more than usual. And it’s a Friday night, and most of the votes are probably already in. It is very hard to imagine that he won’t be prime minister in a fortnight. If so, remembering the old saying about how countries get the leaders they deserve, what on earth will this say about Britain?

Updated

Neil ends with another character question.

Someone who’s worked for you, who knows you well, says you’re all flaws and no character. The British people will face huge and unprecedented risk with Boris Johnson as prime minister, won’t they?

Johnson rejects the claim, and ends with a rant about Jeremy Corbyn.

No. I think that the British people face one serious risk and that is that we failed to get Brexit done, we failed to unite our country and we thereby are so remiss as to allow the government of this country to pass into the hands of an avowed Marxist or semi-Marxist who would put up taxes, who would put up taxes on inheritance, on pensions, on incomes, on corporation tax and he would be an economic disaster.

And that’s it.

I will post reaction and a summary soon.

Q: Would you continue with the government’s current fiscal rules?

Johnson says he would continue to reduce debt.

Asked what the national debt currently is, he says it is about 80% of GDP. Neil tells him it’s 83%

Q: Would you accept limits on borrowing?

Johnson says there is scope for more borrowing.

Neil asks him if he would stick to the government’s second fiscal rule. Johnson says he will be setting out his plans in due course. Neil tells him what the second rule is; not borrowing more than 2% of GDP.

He says Johnson seems to be offering a more “laxical” fiscal policy. Johnson says “laxical” is not a proper word.

Q: Who will come first with your tax cuts? The rich or the poor.

Johnson replies:

The poorest come first. The poorest come first.

  • Johnson says the poorest will take priority when he cuts taxes.

There is then what passes for a moment of comedy in these things.

BJ: Paragraph 5B. Article 24. Get the detail right. Get the detail right, Andrew. It’s article 24 paragraph 5B.

AN: And how would you handle paragraph 5C?

BJ: I would confide entirely in paragraph 5B, because that is

AN: How would you get round what’s in 5C?

BJ: I would confide entirely in paragraph 5B which is enough forour purposes.

AN: Do you know what’s in 5C?

BJ: No.

AN: I thought you were a man of detail.

BJ: Well,you didn’t even know whether it was an article or a paragraph, but –

AN: But that’s not the details you told those Tory hustings ...

BJ: There’s enough in paragraph 5B to get us the agreement that we want.

AN: No. 5C says you don’t just need the EU’s approval; you need to agree with the EU the shape of a future trade agreement ...

Updated

Neil is now asking about Gatt article 24.

Johnson does not challenge Neil when Neil says Johnson wrongly claimed that the UK could use it unilaterally.

But Johnson claims it would still be a route to tariff-free trade in the event of no deal.

It might be possible and I accept that this has to be done by mutual agreement but it might be possible, for instance, as we come out to agree under Gatt 24 paragraph 5B that both sides agree to a standstill, a protraction of their existing zero tariff-zero quota arrangements until such time as we do a free trade deal. And that will be one way forward. And that would be very attractive and of course it will be up to our friends and partners to decide whether they want to go along with that.

Johnson again refuses to rule out proroguing parliament to stop MPs blocking a no-deal Brexit.

Johnson claims 'new spirit of determination' in EU means Brexit deal is now possible

Neil puts it to Johnson that the EU will not agree a change the backstop.

What has changed now, what has changed now is that there is a different approach to the negotiations, a new optimism about what we can do, a new spirit of determination to come properly out of the EU and to get a fantastic deal. And we do that by remitting the solutions to frictionless trade across the Irish border, the Northern Irish border and indeed all other borders to the work that needs to be done to do a free-trade agreement. That is the way to do it. And that’s the way forward.

  • Johnson claims “a new spirit of determination” in the EU means a Brexit deal is now possible.

Updated

Johnson reasserts his determination to take the UK out of the EU by 31 October.

I think it would be absolutely insane now to say that yet again we have a a phoney deadline, it all can be kicked off until - kick the can down the road ‘till the Greek calends.

Johnson defends what he said about Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.

If you look at what I said, I said - the limit of what she was doing was teaching journalism. What I meant to say was that that was the most they could possibly accuse her of. As it happened – even that was not true ...

I reject entirely the assertion that anything I said made things worse.

Updated

Neil is summing up this part of the interview.

This has been the theme of your campaign. I want to comeback to when our ambassador was on the frontline, in the crosshairs, you did not stand up for him. That’s what worries people.

Johnson replies:

Because I thought it was totally wrong to drag into the public domain the career prospects of a senior official and to turn that into a political football.

Updated

Johnson claims he was standing up for Darroch in the Tuesday debate.

Neil challenges this.

The president called him wacky, pompous, a fool, stupid. You didn’t have a word of criticism of the president.

Johnson does not challenge this, but says he has said critical things about Trump in the past.

Updated

Johnson denies failing to support Sir Kim Darroch, the ambassador to the US, in the TV debate on Tuesday. (See 6.36pm.)

Updated

Neil gets Johnson to confirm that crime went down by 20% in London when he was mayor.

He asks if Johnson knew how much it went down in the country as a whole at the same time.

Johnson does not seem to know. “By 26%,” says Neil.

Neil goes on: “So you didn’t outpace the country. You were part of a national trend.”

Johnson repeats figures about his record in London, but he does not challenge Neil’s argument.

Boris Johnson interiew

Another hardball intro from Andrew Neil. He starts:

Boris Johnson, we’re going to talk a lot about policy, but I first want to talk about you, because for many people – including many Tories – your character, your reputation, trust in you is as big an issue as the policies you stand for. Do you accept that that’s a problem for you?

Boris Johnson replies:

No, I don’t at all. I think what people want to see is what my plans are to come out of the EU on October 31st, to get that deal done, take us beyond Brexit and unite the country. And I’ve got a lot of things that I think will be fantastic Conservative policies. I think they want to hear about that, they want to hear about what we can do to fight crime, and I think they’ll be interested to know what – the last time I was asked to fight crime here in this city, what we did in getting it down by, I think, about 20% overall. The murder rate down by about 50%. If people are interested in my character and my political credo or whatever, look at what I deliver.

  • Johnson dismisses suggestions that his character should be an issue in the campaign.

Updated

Hunt ends on health, saying he secured extra funding for the NHS.

Neil says the rate of increase is still lower than the postwar average.

And that’s it.

Updated

Neil asks Hunt to name any big business that has asked for this corporation tax cut.

“Businesses welcome business tax cuts,” Hunt replies.

But, when challenged, he cannot name any specific business asking for the corporation tax cut he is proposing.

  • Hunt cannot name any major business calling for the tax cut he proposes.

Neil challenges Hunt’s analysis.

Mr Trump’s corporation tax cuts were only a small part of an overall fiscal package which has increased the deficit by $2tn in America and has given them a deficit of 5% of GDP. The corporation tax cuts were small in that huge stimulus. Is that your plan in Britain? To get a bigger and bigger deficit, as in America?

Hunt replies:

Well, our context, of course, is different, but it’s different in two ways. First of all, my corporation tax cuts are much more radical than anything President Trump did. To bring those corporation tax rates down to 12½%, one of the very lowest in the world, as low as the levels in Ireland. And incidentally, when Ireland did those cuts, they had a GDP per head that was lower than ours. Now it’s nearly 50% higher.

Neil says there has been an even bigger cut in corporation tax over the last decade, but, he says: “It hasn’t turbocharged the economy; we’ve had the slowest recovery in history.”

Updated

Q: You have made a lot of spending and tax cut pledges. Do those promises stand in the event of a no-deal Brexit?

Hunt says the corporation tax cuts would stay.

Q: So you would use half the Treasury’s fiscal headroom for tax cuts for businesses?

Yes, says Hunt. He explains why.

And let me tell you why. First of all, because in a no-deal situation you will have a shock to the economy with the imposition of tariffs and this is a good way to give businesses more headroom to deal with those changes. But secondly, this is I think the nub of the argument that I’m making. I want to fire up businesses, to get young people starting their own businesses justas I started my own business and I accept that a cut incorporation tax isn’t the most popular tax cut, but what it does, if you look at what President Trump did in America, he cut business taxes and it increased the American growth rate. It’s now growing at about twice our rate, about 3% compared to our 1½%. If we did that in this country we would have an extra 20 billion pounds to spend on precious public services and further tax cuts and that is the heart of our success as a country will be to fire up the economy.

Hunt says he would expect Brexit to happen before Christmas, but does not give a firm commitment to deliver it by then. (See 6.42pm.)

Hunt says he could ask MPs to sit at weekends to get Brexit legislation passed

Hunt says he can get a deal by the end of September.

And it could then get through parliament within a month, he claims.

I think in that situation parliament will be willing to sit at weekends, will be willing to sit late, to do this, but I think it may take a few extra days and I would be willing to allow those days, yes.

  • Hunt says he would ask MPs to sit at weekends to get Brexit legislation passed before end of October if necessary.

Neil challenges Hunt about a claim he has made about Angela Merkel, the German chancellor.

You claim that Chancellor Merkel has told you she’s prepared to look at changes to the withdrawal agreement. We’ve spoken to the German chancellery and they have told us the withdrawal agreement is not up for renegotiation.

Hunt replies:

What I said was that Chancellor Merkel had said to me that if a new British prime minister came forward with a different plan for the Northern Irish border, of course they would look at the package and that is because they want to find a solution to this.

Neil turns to the Brexit deal Hunt wants.

Q: What is the biggest change you want?

The backstop, says Hunt.

Q: And would that make it deliverable?

I think it would broadly make it deliverable within parliament. I think that certainly earlier this year that would be the case, but I will be, as I say, putting together a negotiating team ...

Pressed on what other changes he might want, Hunt just says it is “the main one”.

Hunt repeats the point about the UK leaving.

What I say, and what I say as prospective Prime Minister of this country, is that as a democracy, we are leaving the European Union. And if the only way that the Europeans will allow that to happen is without a deal, then so be it, we will do it. But it isn’t my first choice.

Hunt says he does not want a no-deal Brexit, but he says he is prepared to go for one if necessary.

Neil says only a year ago Hunt said the only person rejoicing in no-deal would be Vladimir Putin.

Hunt admits this.

What I was saying in that interview is that we have to be very careful. I was saying to the Europeans actually in that interview, because I was in Holland when I gave that interview, be very careful. If you think that no deal is going to be a smooth process – it risks fracturing the friendship.

Hunt says he would only offer EU Brexit deal that could get through parliament

Hunt explains how his Brexit strategy would be different from Theresa May’s.

The main thing that I would do differently to Theresa May is I would not be proposing anything to Brussels that we can’t get through parliament. And so my negotiating team would have the DUP, the ERG, the Brexit purists in our party, Scottish and Welsh Conservatives, because we must think about the union as well.

Hunt says Sir Kim Darroch has said that not being backed by Boris Johnson in the TV debate on Tuesday was one of the factors explaining his resignation.

Neil taunts Hunt about his business experience.

When you were an entrepreneur you didn’t do negotiations anything like what will be required in Brussels, anything like the scale. And you go on about being an entrepreneur, you weren’t exactly Steve Jobs or Bill Gates, were you?

Hunt claims that as an entrepreneur he did learn relative skills.

Well, I think you do learn the basics of negotiation. The learn the basics of being prepared to walk away ...

This could be the smallest contract for someone trying to get a business off the ground as I did, but those basics remain the same. And I will tell you that in government those same skills I use to negotiate very complex things like the Licence Fee deal with the BBC, the NHS pay awards.

But Neil is not impressed.

Let’s be honest. You may have been doing it all your life but you have no track record of successful negotiation in the big league. Maybe in the minor league, but this is the big league Mr Hunt.

Hunt urges him not to “belittle people up and down the country who have built up businesses”.

Q: When you said the next PM has to be someone Brussels will talk to, were you saying the EU would not talk to Johnson?

Hunt replies:

Well, people can make their own conclusions.

When pushed on this, he refuses to criticise Johnson.

I have avoided in this leadership campaign making personal comments about Boris, because we’ve got to come together as a party at the end of this.

Updated

Hunt says he cannot stand up for democracy abroad unless he is will to defend it at home - by implementing the result of the 2016 referendum.

How can I be a foreign secretary who stands up for democratic principles in somewhere like Hong Kong, if I’m not prepared to stand up for democratic principles at home in this, one of the oldest, most robust democracies in the world?

Q: Why did you vote for May’s deal three times?

Hunt replies:

The reason I voted for it was because at every stage I voted for us to leave the European Union as quickly as possible. And I didn’t think it was perfect, but I would have preferred right today to be outside the European Union, to have left the EU, to have resolved that issue and then to tackle the imperfections in that deal, the main one of which was the backstop. And as I say, other leading Eurosceptics, people like Jacob Rees-Mogg, for exactly the same reasons, they also voted for that deal because they also wanted us to leave as quickly as possible.

Jeremy Hunt interview

Andrew Neil starts with a zinger.

Jeremy Hunt - like Theresa May you voted to Remain. LikeTheresaMay you’re a Tory technocrat. Like Theresa May you voted for her Brexit deal, three times. Why would the Tories want more of the same when it’s hardly been a golden age for them?

Jeremy Hunt says he is a “totally different person” with a “totally different plan.

Andrew Neil is opening the programme now.

He says the Jeremy Hunt interview will be shown first.

And we have a surfeit of interviews this evening. The BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg has had the challenging task of trying to get Theresa May to say something newsworthy.

Some of these comments are almost identical to what Theresa May said in an interview with the Daily Mail this morning. But the highlight of of that interview was this comment, widely seen as a jibe at Boris Johnson. May said:

Too many people in politics think being prime minister is a position of power.

Actually, it is a position of service to the country where you are always asking yourself “What more can I do for the public?”.

And here is the Jeremy Hunt clip cited earlier.

Here is the Boris Johnson clip cited earlier.

Jeremy Hunt refuses to rule out delaying Brexit beyond Christmas

And this is what the Press Association has filed about the Jeremy Hunt interview.

Tory leadership hopeful Jeremy Hunt has refused to commit to taking Britain out of the European Union before Christmas, saying prime ministers should “only make promises they know they can deliver”.

The foreign secretary insisted it was possible to get a revised deal with Brussels by the end of September, and said if it took “a few extra days” to get it through parliament he would delay Brexit beyond the October 31 deadline.

But, when pressed during an interview with the BBC’s Andrew Neil, he refused to say whether the UK would have left by Christmas, though claimed “it’s not going to be months”.

Hunt has said that he believes he would be able to get a new deal with Brussels, but if that proved impossible, he would prepare for no deal on October 31, making a judgment on the best course to follow at the end of September.

He expressed his confidence in getting a deal by the end of September, telling the BBC: “I believe we can and I, as I say, I think that people like Angela Merkel want to solve this problem.

“If we have a deal, if it’s clear to us and to the Europeans there’s a deal to be done, then of course I would go for that and if it took a little bit - you know, a few extra days - to get it through parliament.”

He said parliament would be “willing to sit at weekends, will be willing to sit late, to do this” but that it “may take a few extra days and I would be willing to allow those days”.

Asked whether he would be prepared to delay by days, weeks or months, Mr Hunt replied: “Well it’s not going to be months.”

But pressed on whether the UK would be out by Christmas, he said: “I’m not going to give you those commitments ...

“It’s because prime ministers should only make promises they know they can deliver. And there’s another reason why we have to be careful about this 31st of October date.

“It is because parliament may try and take a no deal Brexit off the table altogether and so I think - my commitment is that I think I’m the best person to get a deal and if we get a deal it will be on or around the 31st of October but I can’t control what parliament does and that’s why I’m being honest with people about the difficulties.”

Hunt went on to say he expected Brexit to happen before Christmas and, when asked if there was any chance the UK could still go in to 2020 as a member of the EU, he replied: “I don’t believe so, no.”

In a swipe at his rival Boris Johnson, Hunt said he would deliver Brexit “more quickly than the alternative”.

“If you want to leave the EU quickly, if you want to avoid a general election, which is the risk if you go about this in the wrong way, I’m the person who has the biggest chance of negotiating that deal and getting us out by October 31.”

Jeremy Hunt being interviewed by Andrew Neil.
Jeremy Hunt being interviewed by Andrew Neil. Photograph: HANDOUT/Reuters

Boris Johnson uses Andrew Neil interview to deny failing to support ambassador

Andrew Neil is widely regarded as the best prosecutorial interviewer on television. There are other styles of interviewing that can be equally effective and revelatory (sometimes more so), but since cockfighting and bear-baiting have been banned, the British have relied on alternative forms of entertainment and seeing their political leaders getting duffed up on TV by a brilliant forensic performer has been a good substitute. Tonight Neil gets to have a go at Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt.

The two half-hour interviews, which have been pre-recorded and go out at 7pm, almost certainly come too late to influence the result. According to one assessment, Johnson already has enough votes in the post to have won, whatever happens before the election closes at the end of next week. But Johnson, who is almost certain to be prime minister within a fortnight, has given relatively few interviews during the campaign, especially to journalists who might be deemed difficult. This is an important moment of scrutiny for him.

The Press Association has filed an early story based on what he said in the interview. Here it is.

Boris Johnson has admitted a report of his comments about Sir Kim Darroch was a “factor” in his resignation as Britain’s ambassador to the United States.

However, the Tory leadership frontrunner denied failing to give Sir Kim his backing and said his words during a televised leadership debate had been “misrepresented”.

Johnson’s lack of explicit support for Darroch during the ITV debate on Tuesday was widely seen to have been the final straw for the envoy following the leak of his diplomatic cables criticising Donald Trump’s White House.

Furious Tory MPs accused the former foreign secretary, who is favourite to succeed Theresa May, of throwing Darroch “under a bus”, leaving him no option but to resign.

But in an interview with the BBC’s Andrew Neil, Johnson said when he spoke to Darroch by telephone the ambassador told him he had not seen the debate himself although somebody had told him about Mr Johnson’s comments.

“He said that what somebody had relayed to him had been a factor in his resignation,” Johnson said.

He added: “I think that unfortunately what I said on that TV debate was misrepresented to Kim.”

Updated

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