A Tory minister has been mocked for publicly declaring his support for Boris Johnson’s Tory leadership bid and then switching to his arch-rival Rishi Sunak less than half an hour later.
Nadhim Zahawi, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, said the UK should “get ready for Boris 2.0” in an article published by the Daily Telegraph at 9pm.
But just two minutes earlier, Johnson had issued a statement saying he had decided to pull out of the race.
In a remarkable about-turn, Zahawi - who urged Johnson to resign as prime minister in July - then posted a tweet at 9.29pm announcing that he had switched his support to Sunak.
Unsurprisingly, Zahawi was slammed on Twitter for his latest embarrassing U-turn.
The Tory leadership contest is now a two-horse race between Sunak and Penny Mordaunt.
However, Sunak is the red hot favourite, having already secured more than 120 nominations, compared to Mordaunt’s 24.
The deadline for reaching the 100 MP threshold is 2pm tomorrow.
But a source close to Sunak said: “We are not taking anything for granted. Rishi will be continuing to talk to colleagues tomorrow morning before nomination papers go in, and discussing how best to unite the party and take the country forward.”
A Mordaunt campaign source said: “Penny is still running to be the leader of the Conservative Party.
“Penny is the unifying candidate who is most likely to keep the wings of the Conservative Party together and polling shows that she is the most likely candidate to hold onto the seats the Conservative Party gained in 2019.”