Five of the candidates participated in the Channel 4 debate

Boris Johnson is skipping Conservative leadership hustings with political journalists on Monday morning, hours after refusing to attend Channel 4’s televised debate.

His rival candidates are all participating in the event, which began at 11.10am, but the frontrunner's team claim he is too busy doing debate preparation to attend.

Channel 4 marked the Mr Johnson’s absence from Sunday’s debate with an empty podium.

During the event, Rory Stewart, one of the contenders vying to replace Theresa May, claimed up to 100 Conservative MPs would vote with him to stop Boris Johnson carrying out a no-deal Brexit – but ruled out joining with Labour to topple his government.

The Tory leadership outsider refused to echo senior Tories Philip Hammond and Ken Clarke who could potentially back a vote-of-no-confidence, saying: “I'm not going to take down a Conservative government.”

Questioned by The Independent at hustings in Westminster, Mr Stewart said: “We can stop a no-deal Brexit much more easily than that.

“I, and nearly 100 of my colleagues, would vote to prevent a no-deal Brexit without having to bring down a Conservative government.”

Mr Stewart also ruled out backing a Final Say referendum on Brexit, telling journalists it would be “catastrophic and divisive”.