Johnson hopes to consolidate British leadership after surviving televised debate

Brexit's leading figure, Boris Johnson, will seek to consolidate his grip on the British leadership race on Wednesday after emerging unscathed from a televised debate against his remaining four rivals.

The former Foreign Minister has kept his cool and has not detected any problem during a confrontation that followed a second round of voting in which he garnered more votes than his three closest competitors together.

Johnson had avoided the first televised debate on Sunday and carefully staged his engagements with the media in a contest that he still has to lose.

He presented himself Tuesday as the only politician able to bring Britain out of the European Union successfully and deliver the Brexit as requested by British voters three years ago.

"We have to go out on October 31 because otherwise I'm afraid we're facing a catastrophic loss of confidence in politics," Johnson said at a one-hour BBC question-and-answer session with the electors.

"I think the British are fed up."

But neither he nor the others raised their hand at the request of the BBC to do so if they could "guarantee" that the Brexit will take place by 31 October.

The number of MPs will be reduced to four when the 313 Conservative MPs in the House of Commons hold their third secret ballot on Wednesday.

Tuesday's surprisingly homogeneous debate has hardly altered the growing sentiment that Johnson should make a monumental mistake for not winning at this stage.

The Guardian newspaper described Johnson's performance as "sober and reasonable".

"Always the favorite, almost always the next PM," he writes.

Johnson garnered 126 of the 313 votes cast by Conservative MPs on Tuesday.

Minister of Foreign Affairs Jeremy Hunt won 46 votes and Environment Minister Michael Gove 41.

Moderate International Development Minister Rory Stewart continued his challenge against luck by almost doubling his support base to 37.

Interior Minister Sajid Javid got exactly the 33 needed to qualify for the third round.

Britain is frantically seeking a president following the resignation of Prime Minister Theresa May last month, after repeatedly failing in her Brexit process.

His successor will be both resolved to resolve the deepest political crisis that the United Kingdom has known for generations and to define the modalities of its management of the rest of Europe for decades to come.

Two more rounds of voting will bring the list of candidates back to two on Thursday.

The finalists will face the 160,000 members of the ruling party base at a vote next month to decide who will win.

Johnson's lead is so substantial that some British media say the others are simply fighting for a good place in his future government.

Stewart on Tuesday launched the most direct attacks against Johnson saying "the no deal is not a credible threat".

Hunt and Gove reiterated that an additional delay might be needed if an agreement on Brexit was at hand.

"If we were there almost, I would take a little more time," Hunt said.

But Javid said it was "fundamental" to go out on schedule.

Johnson has always warned that he was ready to take Britain out of the European Union without an agreement – provided it is done by the deadline of 31 October.

But he also described the difficult discussion as a bargaining tactic aimed at frightening Brussels and compelling it to compromise on the throbbing question of the Irish border's status.

European leaders have long ruled out the reopening of the binding part of the deal that they had all signed with May last year.

Only Stewart openly tries to save May's pact in the hope of having it adopted by the divided British parliament in the fourth attempt.

The Daily Telegraph hinted that Stewart and Johnson were closer to a face-to-face clash "after becoming the big winners" of Tuesday's vote and debate.