Ex-foreign secretary has ‘more than 80 backers’ privately on board, while some contenders can’t get into double figures.

Boris Johnson is way out in front of the Tory leadership race, with more than double the number of Tory MPs set to back him compared to his nearest Brexiteer rivals, his allies have told HuffPost UK.

Johnson is understood to have more than 80 Conservative backbenchers privately signed up – a quarter of the entire parliamentary party.

The former foreign secretary is also on course to win more than twice the support of fellow Leave campaigners Michael Gove and Dominic Raab, according to a highly detailed headcount of all 313 Tory MPs conducted for the Johnson campaign.

However, his campaign is adopting a deliberate strategy of holding back public endorsements in a bid to build daily momentum ahead of the start of the leadership contest next week.

In a carefully coordinated move, a raft of 11 more backbenchers came out to support the former secretary of state on Monday, taking his publicly revealed total to more than 40 MPs.

Theresa May will formally step down as Tory leader on Friday and is expected to be replaced as prime minister by late July.

Johnson formally launched his campaign with a new video showing him meeting voters on the doorstep of Peterborough, where a Westminster by-election is being held this week. Read more

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