Update: Taking to the stage, amid prolonged applause, Mr Johnson said: “It’s a measure of the resilience of this country that since the vote to leave the EU, and in defiance of all predictions, the economy has grown much faster than the rest of Europe…
“Unemployment has fallen to the lowest levels since 1972, exports have soared, English football teams have won both the Champions League and the Europa League by beating English football teams, and inward investment has soared.
“It’s almost as if the commercial dynamism of the British people is insulating them from the crisis in our politics.”
Shortly after Mr Johnson began speaking, heckling from the street outside the venue was audible in the room.
Cries of “Bollocks to Boris” and “No to Brexit” could be heard during Mr Johnson’s launch speech.
Mr Johnson said: “And yet we cannot ignore the morass at Westminster where parties have entered a yellow box junction, unable to move forward or back, while around the country there is a mood of dissolution, even despair, at our ability to get things done.
“The longer it goes on, the worse the risk that there will be serious contamination and loss of confidence because the people of this country deserve the best from their leader.”
Update:
Camera set up and ready to film Boris Johnson's campaign pitch for the Tory leadership. pic.twitter.com/1UzaC5olFd
— Aisling Ennis (@aislingrosennis) June 12, 2019
A smattering of anti-Brexit protesters have gathered to picket outside the venue for Mr Johnson’s campaign launch in central London.
Veteran anti-EU withdrawal protester Steve Bray told the Press Association: “My message to Mr Johnson is he’s not fit to be an MP, let alone PM.”
Former defence secretary Gavin Williamson, who British Prime Minister Theresa May sacked from the Cabinet, declined to speak to reporters when he arrived for the event.
The welcome party gathers for Boris Johnson’s campaign launch. #Tories pic.twitter.com/PJuw6hAqK7
— Shaun Connolly (@shaunconnolly01) June 12, 2019
Attendees at the launch were offered “Boris bacon butties” and “Boris eggs Benedict” inside the venue.
They were also invited to wear “Back Boris” badges.
Earlier: Boris Johnson is launching his bid to seize the Tory crown, as a cross-party alliance of MPs attempts to use Commons procedure to block a no-deal Brexit.
The UK’s former foreign secretary has emerged as the clear frontrunner in the race to succeed Theresa May – despite so far staying largely silent in the contest.
For many MPs, he is the one candidate who can see off the twin threats of Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party and a Labour government led by Jeremy Corbyn.
However he remains a divisive figure within the party, with criticisms over his role in the Vote Leave campaign and his record as foreign secretary.
Ahead of his launch event in London today, leading supporter Treasury Chief Secretary Liz Truss insisted he had done a “brilliant job” at the UK’s Foreign Office.
She brushed off criticism that he had been responsible for the continuing imprisonment of the British-Iranian mother Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe in Iran.
“I think it’s a sign – that he is being attacked shows the huge public appeal he has, the huge power he has to communicate,” she told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.
“His record is of being the most successful mayor of London we have had, of being an excellent foreign secretary.”
Mr Johnson is expected to use his leadership launch to again insist Britain must quit the EU by October 31.
“We simply will not get a result if we give the slightest hint that we want to go on kicking the can down the road with yet more delay,” he is expected to say .
Delay means defeat. Delay means Corbyn. Kick the can and we kick the bucket
Meanwhile there was anger among Brexiteers at the latest move by MPs opposed to no-deal to seize control of Commons business from the Government.
Labour is using an opposition day debate to try and give control of the Commons agenda to MPs on June 25 in order to stop the UK exiting the EU without a deal in the autumn.
Prominent Brexiteer Sir Bill Cash strongly attacked supporters of the move who include Tory former minister Sir Oliver Letwin, plus the SNP, the Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru and the Greens.
