• Tweeter

  • republish

The two candidates for Theresa May's succession, Boris Johson (L) and Jeremy Hunt (photo montage). REUTERS / Rebecca Naden

Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt, the two candidates to succeed Theresa May as prime minister will face a televised debate on Tuesday evening 9 July. It will be the first and only face to face of the two men of the whole campaign that will end in two weeks.

With our correspondent in London , Muriel Delcroix

This is the long-awaited media duel of this campaign, because so far the team of Boris Johnson has carefully avoided exposing his willingly voluble candidate to any verbal slippage face a Jeremy Hunt known for his coolness.

The exercise is therefore experienced by the team Boris Johnson as a dangerous passage, but obliged and which she hopes the former mayor of London will shoot without making a mistake.

But on the side of his opponent, this confrontation on the very popular channel ITV, at 8 pm, prime time in front of a public in the studio, is a boon and welcomed with enthusiasm, because it is for Jeremy Hunt, figure less known, with limited charisma, the opportunity to show that he is a little bit the opposite of his predecessor in Foreign Affairs.

Faced with a Boris Johnson and his brash approach to Brexit, his recurring blunders, his tumultuous private life , Jeremy Hunt wants to appear as a much more serious candidate and knows his records.

Nevertheless, it is not sure that this debate fundamentally changes the opinion of conservative activists alone to vote and that over the polls invariably place Boris Johnson in the lead in the hope that his power of persuasion makes the difference against Brussels.

► Also read: United Kingdom: Hunt vs. Johnson, two strategies for one position

Who are these adherents of the Tories alone to vote ?

It is the members of the Conservative Party who will elect by correspondence the successor of Theresa May as Prime Minister. Identikit.

He is white, male and lives in the south of the United Kingdom, these are the common characteristics of the majority of Conservative Party members. Their number is around 160,000, which is only 0.2% of the total population.

But it is on their shoulders and not on those of the 66 million Britons that the choice of the future prime minister rests. Ideologically, the majority of these adherents prefer a poor Prime Minister in matters of domestic policy, if he guarantees them Brexit.

A study by the YouGov institute published last June reveals that a majority of them are ready for other sacrifices, foremost among which is renouncing unionism. According to this survey, more than half of them would agree to lose Northern Ireland and Scotland, see witness the destruction of their own party, if that is the cost to pay for the process of exit from the European Union succeeds.

This is why Boris Johnson holds the place of favorite for 77% of them. The former mayor of London campaigned on an outing with or without an agreement by 31 October . Results of the vote on July 23rd.

► Also read: United Kingdom: Johnson or Hunt, the ultimate choice for May's estate