The shock move, which led the former Mayor to withdraw from the contest, was met with claims that he betrayed his ally on the Brexit campaign.
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Kenneth Clarke, a former justice secretary, said Friday that Gove “would all do us a favor if he stood down now and speed up the process” of finding a successor to Cameron, who announced his resignation after losing the referendum to keep Britain in the EU.
Instead, Mr Johnson told his audience that the next Tory leader would have to unify his party and ensure that Britain stood tall in the world.
Other candidates include Ms Leadsom, the Energy Minister who campaigned for Brexit in the referendum campaign, and Mr Fox, who unsuccessfully sought the top job in 2005.
Taking questions from journalists, Gove denied stabbing Johnson in the back.
Mr Gove had been a Boris-for-PM supporter.
“I wanted that plan to work”. That’s up to somebody else now and I wish him every possible success, ‘ he said.
Instead the man who championed the Brexit cause, and was expected to carry the fight to Brussels, said nearly apologetically that he was out of the race.
He made his pitch after Mr Johnson was heckled outside his home, being called a “disgrace”.
What, if any, role Johnson will play in a new government is unclear. “I am in it to be the prime minister”. That can not be me, as I explained yesterday’.
Boris Johnson – not a great week. “He’s created the greatest constitutional crisis of modern times, he’s knocked billions off the value of the nation’s savings” – and then fled the scene.
MP Kwasi Kwarteng, who has now switched to back Mrs May, accused Mr Gove of indulging in “student politics” while Jake Berry said: “There is a very deep pit reserved in hell for such as he”.
“Boris could have chosen to go on if he wished to, the fact that he didn’t, I think is telling”, he said.
After Johnson walked away from the race, Theresa May, a British Conservative Party politician, is believed to be the frontrunner in becoming the UK’s next Prime Minister.
“I’m the candidate for leader who changed our education system”.
But he says he reached the decision after asking himself “What is the right thing to do?” However inconvenient, however hard, whatever personal risks it may entail’.
He became the justice secretary following the general election previous year.
“This shows the inability of Boris Johnson to get a good deal”.
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And he said: ‘All my political career, I have been driven by conviction not ambition, by a belief in doing what’s right not what’s expedient, by wanting to pull levers that make things better, not steer to the sound of applause’.
