Thread by @alexwickham

65 MPs present for Michael Gove to kick off the next round of One Nation hustings tonight - quite a bit fewer than yesterday. Philip Hammond in the audience

NEW: Gove formally opens door to Brexit delay

“If we are making progress and are on the verge of a Deal, and we’ve had a good EU Council in October and we’re 99 per cent of the way there on Halloween are we seriously saying we wouldn’t take a bit more time to get the deal done?”

But Gove also says no deal should still be left on the table...

“No department will be more affected by No Deal than Defra and I’ve done my best to mitigate the damage. No Deal would be a challenge but it has to be on the table. It’s not the best option.”

Gove the latest leadership candidate to have a pop at No10 SpAds. He asks: “How many in this room have engaged with No10 policy unit?”

Last night Rory Stewart vowed to “unleash the talent on the backbenches rather than having lunatic SpAds in No10 telling you what to do”

Now 80 MPs at the One Nation hustings... cheer as Gove says the Tories can’t have an election without delivering Brexit

Matt Hancock up and takes a swipe at the bigger name candidates

“I have a clean skin. I can of course deliver Brexit but then we have to pick the Party up and move together and I can do that. It’s not about the six months but the next six years”

Host @mattforde asks Hancock if that means he’s limiting his term to six years... “Six years and beyond,” he says

Hancock now apparently ‘passionately’ bashing the table as he says it is not true the Tories need a Brexiteer PM

Says this narrative is a “unicorn” -
“We don’t need a Brexiteer as PM”

Hancock says he has already had the first big win for the UK in trade talks after Trump u-turned on the NHS. “He read my tweet”

Hancock calls for centrist “entryism” to the Tory party following reports of rightwing Brexiteers joining

“We need entryism from people we agree with. We want compassionate, thoughtful, freedom loving, rightminded people to join. If you call that entryism then I am all for it.”

Dominic Raab tells One Nation group of moderate Tory MPs why he is not a feminist

“There is a feminist agenda that is in favour of positive discrimination which puts me off the label.”

Raab

“I don’t believe you should be judged on what you say but what you do. As a war crimes lawyer I took on the very worst cases against women”

Says he “picks up the slack at home and I’ve said I’ll introduce day one paternal rights so working women can fulfil their potential”

Awkward moment at One Nation hustings: Philip Hammond, sitting three yards away, eyeballs Dom Raab as he says “too much project fear” has been one of the biggest failings of the last three years

Source in the room says Raab is not altering his pitch at all for the moderate One Nation caucus. Statements landing to silence with supporters like Andrea Jenkyns urging for more applause from the audience

NEW: Raab becomes the first leadership candidate to refuse to rule out proroguing Parliament to force through a no deal Brexit

He says ruling anything out is “weakening our hand with the EU... If I become PM we are leaving at the end of October”

Hunt

“I’m an entrepreneur who has been doing deals all my life. I negotiated the new BBC licence fee and the new doctors contract. I met Macron and Merkel today in Portsmouth and a hardline approach will lead to a hardline response. They‘ll wait for Parliament to block no deal”

Jeremy Hunt impressing One Nation MPs says source. Many in the room nodding in approval and commenting “he’s doing well.”

He says: “I would not call a snap general election. I am not Theresa in Trousers.”

Hunt says “Proroguing Parliament is unlikely to work” but doesn’t completely rule it out.........

Hunt says the Tories can learn from Trump:

“He focuses on communicating to his voters and we don’t spend enough time communicating. Social media is so important. I did a lot of it at Health. It’s harder at FCO. There are a lot of boring handshakes on social media.”

Hunt “hands down best performance of the night” says one source (who doesn’t work for Hunt)