Why Did Boris Quit The Leadership Race?

[Lynn_M]

OK, no one really knows, but feel free to speculate

[Old_Geezer]

He was worn out and needed to spend more time with his family.

[sandyRoe]

Hubris?

[ummmm]

Who would want the job in this time of such uncertainty..

[albaqwerty]

He's keeping his powder dry and waiting for this next leader to fail and will stand as leader in his own right after that.

[Tilly2]

Fear and panic.

[sandyRoe]

He's fond of quotes. For his sake I hope this never applies to him.
There is a tide in the affairs of men.
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.

[Peter Pedant]

// OK, no one really knows, but feel free to speculate//

No - someone does know .... Boris.
I think he realised that he couldnt do the job - wha? win the race ?
No be a useful prime minister

I reckoned Gove tooled up one morning and asked
'OK wodger gonna do when you are PM Boris ?'

and BoJo said - tousling his hair in a boyish manner and looking as tho he had just taken the last swig of champers at the Bullingdon.... - O I will worry about that when I get into No 10.....

and Gove ( go-go-Gove that is ! ) thougth o bloody hell he isnt joking !

[Peter Pedant]

a rare failure of nerve at the relevant moment ?

more Macbeth ( and Macbeth hath murdered sleep and Cawdor shall sleep not more.....)
than Brutus ( there is a tide in the affairs of men .... )

[Peter Pedant]

why did Boris uite the leadership race ?

because he realised pigs couldnt fly ?

[Old_Geezer]

Well, there's a fair few checking that out.

[EDDIE51]

Because he knows the next leader will have to negotiate the deal to leave the EU. He also knows they will get a poor deal, when they have to resign in disgrace he will step in as the 'saviour' .
Whoever becomes the next PM will be 'sacrificed' once people realise how bad the exit deal is going to be.

[Peter Pedant]

Naaa Ed

your analysis presupposes ( assumes ) that people ( our masters and rulers) look forward a step or two into the future and plan if not for our future then their own

the whole story of Brexit and 'what do we do now etc - where is the plan etc' shows that they... dont

[TonyV]

Just biding his time dosent want to get involved at moment. Give him 2 years and he will have another go

[CrapAtCryptics]

He didnt think having a knife in his back was an attractive trait for a potential leader

[mikey4444]

Because he is an opportunist, and he realised, just in time, that this wasn't going to be guaranteed to be his ticket to Number Ten. He would have come up against Mrs May, and he had no surety that he would win.

He will continue to pop up until he wins, of that we can be sure.

[Hopkirk]

I suspect he had a visit from the men in grey suits, who warned him of consequences if he didn't pull out.

[EDDIE51]

People still make the mistake of thinking Boris actually wants to get us out of the EU. It has been obvious since the beginning that it was only a ploy to get into No 10. he didn't expect to win the referendum. He hoped to lose narrowly so that he could become leader after all the fuss had died down.
Now he had had to modify the plan a bit.

[Gromit]

She stole it from Galloway. Of all the people to plagiarise.

[retrocop]

Gromit
Try Sandy's thread. :-)

[ichkeria]

Boris Johnson pulled out after Michael Give pointed out that he'd be useless, thereby killing two birds with one stone: shafting himself in the process :-)
Johnson as a journalist carried out a one man hatchet job on the Brussels bureaucracy, so he was never a europhile. He's one of the 'sensible' euro sceptics and probably always intended to have a pot at supporting leave thinking they'd lose as I suspect did Gove. But hoping for a renegotiation of britains terms of membership: Ie a proper one: this will probably happen and was after all what he originally envisaged a Leave vote leading to, until someone slapped his wrist and handed him a new script :-)