Brexit news - LIVE: Rory Stewart attacks Boris Johnson as Labour reveals plan to block no deal

Our second campaign launch of the morning - Mark Harper's - is coming up shortly. In the meantime, Sajid Javid has launched his official campaign video, and it's quite slick:

Present at former Tory chief whip Mark Harper's campaign launch in Westminster arehis proposer and seconder MPs: Jackie Doyle-Price and Steve Double.

His slogal appears to be: "Time for a party where everyone is invited...Delivering Brexit...Taking our country forwards."

Mark Harper is now speaking at his campaign launch.

Removing his jacket as he takes to the stage, he says he is going to speak without notes and then answer "any questions you want". He says there are "a very, very difficult next few months" ahead for whoever becomes PM. He stresses his working-class background as the son of a labourer and a correspondence clerk and the first person in his family to go to university, saying: "I want that opportunity to do as much as you can do to be there for everyone".

He turns to Brexit, saying his plan is "realistic and credible". He says, having listened to the candidates, that it is the only one that is. 

He says he is "prepared and comfortable" for the UK to leave the EU without a deal but his preference is for leaving with a deal. He says it is "not credible" to suggest that a renegotiated Brexit deal could be agreed by 31 October and so some further delay to Brexit is probably inevitable.

Condemning his rivals, he says:

 

"Everyone else in this race has at some point in the last three years been sat around the cabinet table and has participated in the decisions that have led to us not leaving the EU three years after the referendum. Everyone single one of them has participated in the fundamental misjudgements that have got us to where we are."

Mark Harper says:

"It's not going to be possible to leave on 31 October... It's not credible to say you can renegotiate the withdrawal agreement and get it through both houses of parliament by 31 October. It's not credible to say you can somehow make parliament to vote for the existing, unchanged deal by 31 October."

He also said it was not credible to suggest that parliament would be unable to prevent a no-deal Brexit on 31 October.

Mark Harper says he would aim to take Britain out of the EU in time for the local elections in May 2020, saying:

"I don't think the Conservative Party can survive forcing our voters to vote for other people time after time."

He added: "Rushing headlong towards 31 October isn't a credible plan."

In a swipe at Boris Johnson's promise to raise the higher-rate tax threshold, he said:

"It's obvious to me that some of the choices set out by other candidates I don't think are the right choices... I want to focus tax cuts on people at the lower end of the spectrum... I don't think we should be making promises we can't keep."

Mark Harper says: "I accept I am the underdog in this race, but I think I'm a serious underdog."

In comments seemingly directed at Boris Johnson, who has been criticised for his lack of visibility, he says his message to all candidates is:

"I think you have to be prepared to set out your stall and open yourself to questioning. You have got to level with people about the challenges and be prepared to be questioned about it."

He says that the experience of Theresa May's poor performance in the 2017 election shows the dangers of choosing a leader without first exposing them to the scrutiny of a full-blown leadership contest.

Mark Harper tweeted this video shortly before his campaign launch this morning...

Mark Harper has just finished taking questions from journalists after his campaign launch.

Asked if it was time for Boris Johnson to make a clear statement on whether he has taken illegal drugs in the past, he said:

"I think all candidates in this race owe the public clear answers. I haven't taken any illegal drugs in my entire life. I come from a background where people didn't do that sort of thing. I don't get invited to those sorts of parties and I don't hang out in those sorts of circles."

He added:

"I think we should all answer questions like this, if you want to be prime minister. If are not prepared to answer these questions now, you are going to be asked them in a general election campaign. If I'm a Conservative MP in a marginal constituency, I want the person who's going to be leading my party to answer these questions now, I don't want them to be answering these questions in three years' time when it's my marginal constituency up for grabs. Everyone has to answer these questions and then my colleagues will ask questions about how frank we've been. If you have got nothing to hide, you won't mind answering questions."

Mark Harper also warned against suspending parliament under the process known as "prorogation" in order to force through a no-deal Brexit.

This "would test our constitution to destruction, it would drag the monarch into the most difficult political decision, which as a Conservative I would deprecate," he said.

Asked whether he thought Boris Johnson had a workable plan for Brexit, he said Tory MPs and members would have to decide whether each candidate "has the skills to deal with our European partners in an appropriate way that is going to get them round the table to negotiate a deal" as well being able to unite Tory and DUP MPs behind their proposals.

NEW: The EU has told Tory leadership contenders that it will not change the Brexit deal for a new prime minister