Leadership candidate Boris Johnson described the EU as an ‘incubus’ at the Birmingham hustings (Picture: PA)

Boris Johnson said the country must prepare itself for a no-deal Brexit as he rallied support at first of the Tory leadership hustings.

Speaking to party members in Birmingham he said he was the man to lead the UK out of the EU and ‘pitchfork this incubus off our backs’.

The frontrunner in the battle for Number 10 said the country would be showing ‘conviction’ by being ready to fall back on WTO rules on October 31.

He was challenged by a member of the audience over his ‘f*** business’ comment (Picture: EPA)

In his opening speech at Birmingham he said the government’s failure to deliver Brexit as early as originally promised has given ground for the pro-EU Liberal Democrats and Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party, who he said are ‘sprouting up like puff balls’.




He said: ‘I can’t hide it from you that we meet in dark days for our party and I have never known to be 17 points behind in the polls.’

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But he told the audience ‘the hour is darkest before the dawn’.

He said: ‘As someone who had meditated on the opportunities Brexit can bring to our country I’m the man to deliver that project.

The former foreign secretary added: ‘We can turn this thing around and we can go on to defeat Jeremy Corbyn.’

Mr Johnson said these are ‘dark days’ for the Conservative Party (Picture: PA)

Mr Johnson, 55, said: ‘Too many people feel left behind by the incredible success of the country and our ambition must be to bring the whole of Britian, the whole of the UK, together’.

But one member of the audience challenged him on ‘splitting the country’ over the 2016 referendum, dividing the electorate in the 2017 general election and helping to ‘split the party’ this year.

He added: ‘All this happened on your watch – We’re being called “the nasty party” again after 17 years, please explain how we will unify all these factions.’

Mr Johnson was confident the country’s wounds could be healed but said it ‘must deliver the will of the people’ for it to happen.

Mr Johnson was accused of helping contribute to the country’s divides (Picture: PA)

The former Mayor of London was asked about representation of ethnic minorities in his party and was taken to task over Islamophobia within the party.

He responded: ‘I think that any form of discrimination or prejudice is ugly and intolerable and we must stamp it out.’

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It follows news yesterday that the Chairman of the Conservative Muslim Forum Mohammed Amin said he was removed from his role for ‘casting doubt on Boris Johnson’s moral fitness’ in an interview.

He compared Mr Johnson to Adolf Hitler and accused him of ‘pandering to the far right’ by targeting Muslims as a ‘vote winner’.

Mr Johnson also discussed lowering taxes for both lower income families and bolstering police numbers in a bid to crack down on country lines drug gangs.

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