Support for Boris Johnson to be next Tory leader soars among party members after Cabinet walkout
2 min read
Boris Johnson is Tory members' favourite to be the party's next leader for the first time in two years, according to a new poll.
Support for the former Foreign Secretary has soared after he quit the Cabinet in protest at Theresa May's Brexit policy, the survey for the ConservativeHome website found.
It is the first time Mr Johnson has topped the website's monthly poll since 2016, shortly after he declared he was backing Leave in the EU referendum.
The poll shows that 29% of Conservative activists now believe be should succeed Mrs May as party leader - more than four times as many as in June.
Home Secretary Sajid Javid emerges as Mr Johnson's main rival for the top job on 19%, followed by Jacob Rees-Mogg on 13%.
Michael Gove is the next named alternative on 7%, ahead of David Davis and Jeremy Hunt, who are both backed by around 4.5% of Tory members.
However, Mr Johnson's hopes of becoming Prime Minister still rest on him being able to persuade enough Conservative MPs to support his nomination.
Mr Johnson and Mr Davis both resigned last month just days after the Cabinet agreed on the UK's offer to Brussels at a Chequers away day.
In his resignation letter to the Prime Minister, Mr Johnson said: "Brexit should be about opportunity and hope. It should be a chance to do things differently, to be more nimble and dynamic, and to maximise the particular advantages of the UK as an open, outward-looking global economy.
"That dream is dying, suffocated by needless self-doubt."
The ConnservativeHome survey echoes the findings of a YouGov poll which found that 34% of voters believed Mr Johnson would do a better job of negotiating Brexit than Theresa May.
PoliticsHome Newsletters
PoliticsHome provides the most comprehensive coverage of UK politics anywhere on the web, offering high quality original reporting and analysis: Subscribe
