Esther McVey announces support for Boris Johnson in Tory leadership race

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inbox Get our free View from Westminster email Get our free View from Westminster email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Defeated Conservative leadership contender Esther McVey has come out in support of her former rival Boris Johnson. Ms McVey, who finished bottom of the first ballot of Tory MPs, said the former foreign secretary had agreed to back her agenda for “blue collar Conservatism”. Writing in The Sunday Telegraph, Ms McVey said she would “wholeheartedly support” the leadership frontrunner because he had pledged to reach out to “hard-working communities who have been abandoned by Jeremy Corbyn’s divisive Labour Party”. “Our country is crying out for strong, optimistic leadership and Boris is the man best equipped to take us out of the EU, to transform our country into an outward-looking, confident, self-governing nation, and to implement a policy agenda that will bring back the voters we have lost and ensure we don’t allow Jeremy Corbyn’s manifesto of economic carnage to plunge us back into the dark ages.” Ms McVey automatically slipped out of the race to lead her party after winning the backing of only nine other MPs in the first-round ballot.