Jeremy Hunt is hopeful of “running up a big win” in Scotland after a snap survey conducted by his campaign suggested he had majority support among Scottish Conservative councillors.
As both candidates in the Tory leadership contest prepare for the one and only live television head-to-head before a studio audience on ITV tonight, their camps exchanged accusations of “betrayal” as the Foreign Secretary pledged to ensure the UK would leave the EU’s hated Common Fisheries Policy[CFP] by December 2020.
His camp - which has already boasted majority support among Scottish Tory MSPs, including leader Ruth Davidson, and has the backing of most MPs, who have declared a public preference - told The Herald its survey of more than 100 councillors following last week’s Perth hustings showed 69 had swung behind Mr Hunt as opposed to 36, who said their preference was for Boris Johnson.
A campaign source said: “All the indications in Scotland and across the UK are that more and more Conservatives are moving towards Jeremy Hunt.
"The vast majority of Scottish Conservative MSPs are backing Jeremy and it looks like the same picture across the wider party. We're hopeful of running up a big win for Jeremy north of the border," he added.
Meanwhile, Borders backbencher John Lamont, Mr Hunt’s Scotland campaign manager, stressed how Mr Johnson had said he was willing to extend the post-Brexit Implementation Period to 2021 but made clear keeping the UK in the CFP would be “completely unacceptable” for Scotland’s fishermen.
- READ MORE: Tory candidates prepare for one and only live TV showdown - but has Boris Johnson already won?
“Anything less than leaving the CFP by December 2020 would be a betrayal of Scotland,” declared Mr Lamont.
But the Johnson camp hit back, insisting Brexit by October 31 was necessary to regain control of UK fishing waters. “This is the only way we avoid a betrayal of the people," it said.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel