Sign up here to receive the daily news briefing in your inbox every morning with exclusive insight from the BrexitCentral team The next Prime Minister must drop the Irish backstop, says Sir Graham Brady The next Prime Minister must drop the backstop in Brexit negotiations as it threatens the Good Friday Agreement, according to senior Tory backbencher MP Sir Graham Brady. Removing the backstop and working on alternative arrangements is the only way the present Brexit deal can work, he argued. He said the new Prime Minister “must recognise that the backstop is a threat to the Good Friday Agreement, rather than its guarantor…Secondly, they must at once ensure work on alternative arrangements, including the technical solutions, is given (long overdue) priority.” Brady introduced an amendment to the Brexit bill in January which called for the government to seek alternative arrangements to the backstop negotiated between the UK and the EU. The backstop, which has been rejected by parliament, would mean Northern Ireland would stay more closely aligned to some EU regulations than the rest of the UK in the event a comprehensive trade deal could not be reached. – City A.M. Tory leadership rivals face MPs for a final hustings ahead of today’s second ballot… The Tory leadership candidates have taken part in their final hustings with backbench MPs ahead of the next round of leadership votes. Jeremy Hunt said the next Prime Minister must be “willing to walk away” from EU negotiations while Gavin Williamson praised Boris Johnson’s performance. The rivals – all but Mr Johnson – had already clashed over Brexit and Donald Trump when they faced the press for a round of hustings a day before MPs vote to narrow the field. Rory Stewart declined to answer a question about whether he would vote Leave or Remain in a second referendum. “If there were a second referendum I would have completely failed,” he said. His rivals Jeremy Hunt and Sajid Javid both said they would back Leave, when asked the same question. The candidates were also split on their response to Mr Trump’s Twitter attacks on Sadiq Khan. Mr Javid said the tweets were “unbecoming of the leader of such a great state” while Mr Hunt said he agreed with Mr Trump “150%” on Mr Khan’s record as mayor. – Telegraph (£) …as Michael Gove seeks to knock out Rory Stewart Michael Gove is attempting to halt the momentum gathering behind Rory Stewart in the race for No 10 with a plea for MPs not to “polarise” the Conservative Party. With Boris Johnson almost certain of being one of the two candidates put to Tory members, Mr Stewart’s insurgent campaign has unsettled rivals scrambling for second place. Theresa May’s deputy, David Lidington, came out last night for Mr Stewart, the international development secretary. A series of MPs who previously backed Matt Hancock, the health secretary, also swung behind the former rank outsider who is now a serious contender for the second slot in the final run-off vote to become Tory leader. Mr Hancock declared for Mr Johnson in The Times yesterday. Mr Stewart’s impassioned challenge of Brexiteers who claim that they can achieve a better deal, and his refusal to support an exit from the EU without an agreement, have won him backers from the Remain wing of the party. – The Times (£) ‘Chairman Boris’ would be expected to sack a third of Theresa May’s top team so he could build Cabinet of allies… As many as one third of Theresa May’s top team could be replaced by a new cadre of rising star politicians being lined up to sit in a Boris Johnson Cabinet. MPs are openly speculating about who might be promoted to Mr Johnson’s front bench if – as bookmakers expect – he is crowned Prime Minister next month. Mr Johnson is expected by MPs to take more of a hands-off “chairmanship” role as Prime Minister, handing down authority over policy areas to trusted lieutenants. That would mimic his stint as mayor of London where key aides such as Sir Eddie Lister, Mr Johnson’s deputy in City Hall, and Will Walden, his former chief political adviser who still offers personal advice had huge influence over Mr Johnson. Brexiteers stress that Mr Johnson has made no known promises to any of his supporters in order to win their support. – Telegraph (£) …as Johnson is accused of making contradictory Brexit promises to MPs Boris Johnson has been accused of giving MPs contradictory promises on Brexit to win their votes, as one of his highly Eurosceptic backers warned that hardliners want to see him effectively tear up Theresa May’s deal with the EU. The Conservative leadership frontrunner will face questions on his Brexit stance in a television grilling for the first time in the campaign on Tuesday, amid frustration among his rivals that he is getting away with pledging to be “all things to all MPs” on issues from Brexit to HS2 in one-on-one meetings with them. His backers currently include most of parliament’s hardline Eurosceptics, as well as moderates including Matt Hancock, Robert Buckland and Damian Collins, raising questions about how he has won support across the spectrum. Steve Baker, one of his hardline Eurosceptic backers, set out his belief that “too many leadership candidates think the backstop is the only problem with the withdrawal agreement”, arguing that it would also continue an unacceptable supremacy of EU law over UK law. – Guardian Boris Johnson doesn’t need Nigel Farage’s Brexit pact, claims aide… One of Boris Johnson’s key allies today downplayed suggestions that he would enter into an electoral pact with Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party to maximise the number of Leave MPs in the House of Commons. Yesterday it was claimed that Tory donors had opened informal talks with Mr Farage about whether his party would agree not to stand against Brexiteer Tories in a snap general election. In return the Conservatives would not contest seats in towns and cities where they are weak, giving the Brexit Party a better chance of beating Labour. However, James Cleverly, who worked with Mr Johnson when he was mayor of London, said that if Mr Johnson became the prime minister he would not need to do such a deal to deliver Brexit. “I can’t see that is something he would want to do and it is not anything he would need to do,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “He is able to win elections with Conservatives and Conservative support. He didn’t breach electoral pacts in London and I can’t imagine he would need to breach electoral pacts at this point.” – The Times (£) …as poll finds Tory members would be happy to have Nigel Farage as leader Almost half of card-carrying Conservative members would be happy for Nigel Farage to become their party’s leader, a poll suggests. In a YouGov survey 46 per cent said that if the Brexit Party leader joined the Conservatives and stood for their leadership they would be happy for him to win, compared with 40 per cent who said that they would be unhappy. The finding is one of several pieces of evidence in the polling that the EU referendum has shaken the country’s traditional political alignments. Conservative Party members will begin choosing Theresa May’s successor as prime minister on Saturday with the first hustings featuring the final two candidates. More than two thirds of members, 68 per cent, said that the party should woo voters from the Brexit Party and Ukip, Mr Farage’s former party, at the next general election. This compares with only 25 per cent who think they should aim to attract Labour and Liberal Democrat voters. – The Times (£) Tom Watson calls for special Labour conference on Brexit by end of July as he pressures Jeremy Corbyn over a second referendum… Tom Watson has called for a special conference to settle Labour’s growing Brexit row by the end of July, as he attempted to push Jeremy Corbyn closer towards a second referendum on Monday. In a bid to force the Labour leader’s hand, Mr Watson is urging the party’s national executive committee (NEC) to approve an emergency ballot or meeting of members before Parliament rises for the summer. Challenging Mr Corbyn over his attempts to delay changing policy until Labour’s annual conference in September, Mr Watson said he feared it would be “too late” to prevent a no deal Brexit. Instead, he is demanding that Labour’s governing body take matters into their own hands by sanctioning a vote by the end of next month, providing enough time for MPs to make the case for a public vote during the summer recess. – Telegraph (£) …while he wonders ‘whether the Labour party is leaving me’… Labour’s deputy leader, Tom Watson, has said he believes his party would be “leaving me” if it cannot fully endorse a second referendum, hours after giving a speech in which he said it should be the party of remain. Watson told the BBC that Labour “certainly might lose some votes” for backing a referendum, but would pay “a very high electoral price” for not taking a clear position on Brexit. Asked if he might be prepared to leave the party without a clear change of direction, he said, “I’m never going to leave the Labour party,” but then added: “Sometimes I wonder whether the Labour party is leaving me.” Watson said he had “no doubt” Labour’s position would change at the party’s annual conference in September, but said he feared “by then it will be too late”. The deputy leader’s interview followed a speech he gave at a pro-EU thinktank arguing that Labour needed to make a better case for continued EU membership – even at this late hour. – Guardian > WATCH: Tom Watson’s speech on changing Labour’s policy on a second referendum …but Labour Chair Ian Lavery condemns Watson over Remain plea… Labour’s Brexit civil war flared again yesterday as the party’s chairman hit back at Tom Watson and his call to back Remain in a second referendum. Jeremy Corbyn has been under intense pressure to ditch Labour’s stance of “constructive ambiguity” on Brexit. His party suffered heavy losses to Remain-supporting parties such as the Liberal Democrats, the Greens and the SNP at the European elections last month. Mr Watson, the deputy leader, called for a change of policy now that the party was staring “down the barrel of a Boris Johnson premiership”. He said in a video message: “We must bring the public back into this decision and we must argue strongly to Remain. Our future doesn’t need to be Brexit. We can change the future. We can put Britain back at the heart of Europe again. We can be proud of leading the fight for a fairer and stronger future, together.” – The Times (£) …and Labour MP Kate Hoey attacks Watson’s pro-EU Labour claim, branding it utter ‘nonsense’… Ms Hoey, who was for a time co-chair of Labour Leave, was responding to the Deputy Leader’s speech at a pro-EU think tank on Monday. She told host Mark Urban: “The values that Tom Watson talked about, all about the values of solidarity and the values of freedom and these were all part of the EU. I believe Labour should be an internationalist party and all those values are equally true of being an internationalist.” Ms Hoey, who was Sports Minister under Tony Blair, added: “We’re tying ourselves to this small European Union.” Mr Watson has made calls for Jeremy Corbyn to call a second referendum and has blamed the leader’s lack of clarity on Brexit for their poor showing at the European elections, where they lost 10 of their 20 seats. Ms Hoey said she felt Mr Watson failed to see the difference “between the EU and Europe” before adding: “When I look back, 1983, we stood on a manifesto of leaving the common market, so the idea that somehow we’ve always been a pro-EU party is nonsense.” – Express > WATCH: John Mann MP on Tom Watson’s call for a second referendum Michael Gove: I’ll deliver Brexit — and save the country from Corbyn Is there a candidate for prime minister who I would refuse to work with? After careful thought, I’m afraid the answer is yes. There is one candidate for the job who would be a disaster for the United Kingdom. He would wreck the economy, fail to deliver Brexit, embarrass Britain on the world stage and put the future of the Union in peril. The only good news is that the Conservative Party’s members won’t be asked to vote for him — because he’s the leader of the opposition. Jeremy Corbyn, who is only one bad general election result away from No 10 Downing Street, is no ordinary Labour leader. Under his watch, Labour has gone from being a party with a proud history and tradition of public service to one that is a magnet for antisemites and the militant hard-left. – Michael Gove MP for The Times (£) Ruth Davidson: Under no circumstances should the Tories form an alliance with the Brexit Party The European election was not quite an extinction-level event for the Tory party, but it was not far off. And while that vote offered a unique set of circumstances, it was also by no means a one-off. Poll after poll in the weeks since have shown a collapse in Westminster voting intentions. While a couple of the pollsters place the party in second behind Labour, Deltapoll sees the Tories slip to third in a general election, while YouGov sees us limping home in fourth. We have a prime minister with one foot out the door and a leadership election which has split the party between cheerleaders for the frontrunner and anyone-but-the-frontrunner. Collective cabinet responsibility has broken down, reports suggest donors are withholding support, local associations are moving to deselect sitting MPs, while other MPs have already given up the Conservative whip in order to sit as independents or throw their weight behind a new party which ended up being dead on arrival. – Ruth Davidson MSP for the Telegraph (£) Nadhim Zahawi: Johnson and Raab showed their Brexit commitment by resigning. That’s why we need them both in the final We have reached a crucial phase in the Conservative leadership contest. A contest which will not only select a new leader of our Party, but a new Prime Minister. We need a leader with the resolve to lead Britain out of the EU by the end of October and the vision to unite the country to ensure that Jeremy Corbyn and his motley crew of Marxist cronies never set foot in the halls of power. This task should come naturally to the Conservative Party, which has long held the title of the only serious party of Government. But after nine years in power, that hard-won moniker is at risk of slipping. And if we fail to deliver on our promise to voters to leave the EU, we are toast. In 2016, the country gave us a clear instruction to leave the EU. In 2017, we established a timeline to deliver Brexit by the end of March 2019. Yet three years on we have not broken the shackles of Europe. – Nadhim Zahawi MP for Conservative Home Robert Peston: My backstop question for candidates At the hacks’ hustings for the Tory leadership candidates, I asked the five who could be bothered to be held to account by your inky fingered servants a really boring question. Would they accept the definition of a “hard border” on the island of Ireland written into the December joint agreement between the UK and the EU, which underpins the backstop plan in the Withdrawal Agreement? The reason this matters is that the joint agreement says there is a commitment to avoid “a hard border including any physical infrastructure or related checks and controls”, and the Withdrawal Agreement says “any future arrangements [for Ireland] must be compatible with these overarching requirements”. If you are still awake, the reason I asked this seemingly dull technical question is it is this definition of a hard border that sunk Theresa May’s stoic attempts to have her deal ratified by MPs and ultimately sunk her. To be clear, it was completely understandable she agreed there should be no hard border – because prior to the Good Friday Agreement the previous hard border was associated with terrorism, crime, life-wrecking atrocities. – Robert Peston for ITV News The Sun: Boris Johnson, how will you ensure Brexit happens on October 31st as you promised? Boris Johnson needs an answer tonight for the only question that really matters. How will you ensure Brexit happens on October 31, as you have promised? Brussels and Labour are interested only in blocking and sabotage. The EU currently refuses to improve the deal or fix the backstop. Labour, with Remainer Tories and their puppet Speaker Bercow, aim to prevent No Deal. What then, Boris? If the answer is an election — in the hope of exposing Labour, winning back Brexit Party voters and securing a Tory majority — our apparent Prime Minister-in-waiting had better admit it. If his answer is more delay, likewise. A fudge won’t work. Everyone can see the problem. – The Sun says Telegraph: Today is the real test for Rory Stewart, the exotic insider who sees Brexit as a national mistake There cannot be many leadership contests where the candidate with the fewest votes is suddenly the one everyone is talking about. But Rory Stewart, who won the support of just 19 MPs in the first round last week, is being touted as a possible runner-up to the likely winner Boris Johnson. Or at least he is by many people who do not actually have a say in the matter and who do not necessarily have the interests of the Conservative Party at heart. Mr Stewart allegedly has what the Americans call “the big mo” – he is going forward while his rivals threaten to stall or fall backwards. The very fact that he is far less well-known than his rivals gives him novelty value. Mr Stewart has been in the Cabinet just a few weeks, taking over as International Development Secretary in May as a consequence of a mini-reshuffle. He has been an MP for nine years, was previously chairman of the defence select committee and has served in a number of departments. He is known to his colleagues at Westminster in a way he is not to the wider public; and so far fewer than 20 MPs consider him to be a potential leader. That may well change today with the second round of voting, but he still needs to secure 33 endorsements in order to proceed in the contest. – Telegraph (£) editorial Brexit in Brief SNP MEP forced to issued grovelling apology to Brexit Party MEP over “money laundering” claims – Guido Fawkes