How Rory Stewart broke Westminster 'rule' ahead of first round results announcement
TORY leadership hopeful Rory Stewart broke a "weird Westminster rule" ahead of the results of the first round of the contest which saw Boris Johnson topping the league with 114 votes, BBC's Chris Mason revealed.
Tory leadership: Rory Stewart ‘broke rule’ during announcement
The Intermational Development Secretary walked in by himself as he joined his supporters in the 1922 Committee parliamentary room to hear the results of the first round of the Tory leadership contest. BBC Political Correspondent Chris Mason told Brexitcast that Mr Stewart broke the unspoken Westminster "rule" of walking around with several people to exude power around the parliamentary grounds. Mr Mason also revealed there was "banter" ahead of the results between Rory Stewart and former Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab.
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He said: “I was in the room when it was all happening and you saw supporters of various teams coming in losing for their fellow supporters of their man or their woman and sitting down.
“Rory Stewart came on his own. And there’s a kind of weird rule at Westminster that if you want to exude power you walk around with several people around you.
“But it almost kind of played into the Rory Stewart campaign, which is that he would walk in on his own.
“And then he looked around trying to find his supporters and spotted David Gauke who was sitting in the back and went and joined him.
“And then there was a bit of banter shouted across the room between Rory Stewart on one side and Dominic Raab on the other.
“And they were each saying to each other ‘Oh come on, just come and join us!’.”
There’s a weird rule at Westminster that if you want to exude power you walk around with several people
Former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson romped to victory in the first round of voting after gaining the support of 114 MPs.
Following the result, Mr Stewart ensured he severely damaged his chances of teaming up with Mr Johnson after he revealed his plot to end his tenure.
He said: “I guarantee you, if he were to try, I and every other member of Parliament will sit across the road in Methodist Central Hall and we will hold our own session of Parliament and we will bring him down.”
Mr Stewart who scrapped through the first ballot by just two votes - after receiving the backing of 19 MPs, continued to champion his chance of progressing into a head-to-head battle against Mr Johnson.
Tory leadership: Rory Stewart says he's ‘moving up the league’
The race to succeed Mr Johnson was cut to just seven contenders after Esther McVey, Andrea Leadsom and Mark Harper failed to gain the support of 17 MPs.
The race is now on for second place after Mr Johnson opened up a 71-vote lead on his nearest rival.
Jeremy Hunt, won 43 votes, Michael Gove, 37 votes and Dominic Raab, 27 votes.
While Sajid Javid, came fifth with 23 votes, followed by Matt Hancock on 20 votes and Mr Stewart on 19.
