Jeremy Hunt has questioned whether Boris Johnson can be trusted, claiming his rival will fail to deliver Brexit – as both prepare to face questions at a hustings today.
The Foreign Secretary, 52, was speaking at a Conservative Progress Conference in central London this morning, ahead of the pair’s first hustings in Birmingham.
He slammed Mr Johnson as the wrong person to deliver Brexit, as he told party activists there would be ‘no trust’ during negotiations.
It comes as both are due to be grilled at the first of 16 national hustings this afternoon where the pair will face questions from broadcaster Iain Dale.
Mr Hunt said: ‘If we send the wrong person out as our PM there will be no trust, no negotiation, no deal and if Parliament forces a general election no Brexit.
Send the right person and it can be totally different because what [good] negotiators do is they take a set of bad choices and turn them into good choices.
At the hustings this afternoon, both will each make a short pitch to the audience, followed by questions from Dale and the Tory members at the event.
Mr Hunt has asked Mr Johnson to have a live debate on local media after each of the hustings, but whether this will go ahead is yet to be seen.
Mr Johnson secured 160 votes, Mr Hunt 77 and Mr Gove 75. The figures immediately fuelled rampant speculation about tactical voting, as Mr Johnson only increased his tally by three votes between the final rounds.
Mr Hunt has been keen to engage in more public debates with Mr Johnson following the reveal. And speaking to the Daily Telegraph he slammed his predecessor for hiding away and said he was being a bottler.
He said: If you’re going to hide away, that’s not democracy. He may be the right man, I may be the right man. But Conservative Party members can only make that choice if you have a proper debate.
And you can’t have that debate if one of the candidates is bottling all opportunities to have a public head-to-head debate before ballot papers are sent out.
In his interview with the newspaper, he again slammed Mr Johnson’s decision not to take part in a live televised debate ahead of ballot papers being sent out.
He continued: The first thing Boris did after the result was announced was challenge me to a debate on ITV. I thought fantastic, we’re going to have a really good debate.
Both Mr Hunt and Mr Johnson are now looking to the next phase of the contest, with ITV announcing the first head-to-head televised debate on July 9.