Tory leadership debate: Boris Johnson brandishes kipper on stage as he declares May's Brexit deal ‘defunct' at final hustings
The final Conservative Party leadership hustings with Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt, as it happened
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Your support makes all the difference.Tory leadership contenders Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt both stood by their stated approaches to handling Brexit at the final hustings before the polls close for Conservative members to vote for their party’s new leader and the country’s next prime minister.
Mr Johnson repeatedly refused to rule out suspending Parliament as PM to force through Brexit and said the UK would leave the European Union by 31 October with or without a deal.
Mr Hunt meanwhile said he could delay Brexit beyond that point if a deal was in reach, but he has also not ruled out walking away from negotiations without an agreement.
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Mr Johnson says he wants a "spirit of generosity and inclusion" to pervade Britain under his leadership.
"How will you stop climate change?" Mr Johnson is asked by a child in the audience.
Mr Johnson praises Theresa May's goal of making the UK carbon-neutral by 2050. "New technology" will be used to do so, including "revolutionary battery technology", he says.
Immediately the foreign secretary shuns the lectern and speaks Steve Jobs-style by pacing back and forth.
His sleeves are rolled up, presumably a hangover from his time as health secretary.
He's also made a joke about the words that rhyme with his surname, even though we know there's at least one child in the room.
Britain is "still that great democracy" of Magna Carta, the Second World War and other significant events, which is why he will deliver Brexit despite having voted to remain, says Mr Hunt.
"At crucial moments in our history we have been bold," says Mr Hunt. Like abolishing the slave trade, establishing the NHS and the suffrage movement, he says.
But Brexit must not be carried out in a "gung-ho" fashion lest Brussels block a re-negotiated withdrawal agreement, or parliament block a no-deal exit, he says.
Mr Hunt's big lines are landing with somewhat less punch than Mr Johnson's.
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