Boris Johnson will stand in Tory leadership race says Jacob Rees-Mogg

Jacob Rees-Mogg has said Boris Johnson will stand in the Tory leadership race.

The Business Secretary, a staunch ally of Mr Johnson, told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme: “I have been speaking to Boris Johnson, and clearly he’s going to stand, there’s a great deal of support for him”.

Conservative MP Damian Green meanwhile said now is not the right time to consider Boris Johnson becoming prime minister again,

He told Sophy Ridge On Sunday: “We saw what happened last time. The government literally fell apart with 60-odd resignations so I just do not think it would work. I think particularly not at this time.

Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson arrives at Gatwick Airport in London, after travelling on a flight from the Caribbean

“We all know there’s this standards committee investigation going on and as long as that is going on there is the possibility if he became leader again, then in a couple of months time we’d all be here again and, absolutely, we should not put the country through that.”

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said a “ridiculous, chaotic circus” is taking place at the top of the Conservative Party, adding: “My focus is on the millions of people who are struggling to pay their bills, have now got additional anxieties about their mortgage – I know what it feels like not to be able to pay your bills, that happened to me and my family when I was growing up.

“They are fed up to the back teeth with this.”

Sir Keir repeated his call for a general election, telling BBC One’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg: “The country needs change, the country needs stability, the country needs to get rid of this chaos, it’s been going on for the best part of 12 years, we don’t need another change at the top of the Tory party, we need a change of government.”

Sir Keir said an incoming government is going to have to “pick up a real mess of our economy of the Tories’ making”.

He was asked to go into detail on policy areas for a Labour government and noted they would have to face “tough choices” that means they “can’t do some of the things we want to do as an incoming Labour government as quickly as we would want to”.

Asked what that would involve, Sir Keir replied: “I’m not going to write our manifesto on this programme.”