LONDON _ Rivals to be Britain's next prime minister are holding private talks over joining forces in an attempt to stop the pro-Brexit favorite, Boris Johnson, running away with the contest, people familiar with the matter said.
Two of the candidates who are struggling for support _ Home Secretary Sajid Javid and Health Secretary Matt Hancock _ met to discuss their options after Johnson took a huge lead in the race for the Conservative Party leadership in the first round of voting.
Johnson's six rivals are lagging far behind him after Thursday's initial ballot of MPs and talks between some of them have been taking place over consolidating their campaigns, according to three people close to the discussions. No deals have yet been done, the people said.
In the first round of voting Thursday, Johnson _ who has vowed to deliver Brexit with or without a deal _ won the support of 114 Tory members of Parliament out of the 313 who voted. That was far ahead of his nearest rival, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, with 43.
The contest is not over and more votes among MPs are scheduled next week to narrow down the field of seven remaining candidates. But Johnson's dominant performance means that the favorite is now certain to be one of the two contenders who make it through to the final runoff stage in the contest, if he can avoid a major mishap.
"I am delighted to win the first ballot, but we have a long way to go," Johnson wrote on Twitter after his victory in the first round.
A Johnson victory would radically reset British politics and redefine the U.K.'s policy on its troubled divorce from the European Union. As the face of the pro-Brexit campaign in 2016, he has called for a clean, quick break with the EU, resigning from Theresa May's Cabinet last year in protest at her plan to retain the bloc's trade rules.
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