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LONDON, June 10-- The race to choose a new prime minister officially started Monday with ten hopefuls bidding to win the biggest job in British politics. The list of contenders emerged when a deadline closed with the successor to Theresa May expected to be announced before the end of July. Former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson remains favorite to win the race. To guarantee a place in the final two that will be decided in a national vote among around 160,000 grassroots Conservative party members, Johnson will have to convince enough of the more than 300 Conservative MPs that he is the best person to move into 10 Downing Street. Critical to the process of choosing a successor as leader of the Conservatives will be how each of the politicians taking part in the process plan to handle Brexit, the task described as the poisoned chalice of British politics. The person chosen as leader will automatically become Prime Minister, though Queen Elizabeth II has to approve the appointment. Johnson was the first in the line-up of contenders to say he would seek a deal with the EU but would be prepared to leave on Oct.31 with no deal. That is likely to put him at odds with MPs, many of them Conservatives, insisting Britain must reject any notion of a no-deal Brexit. May's failure to deliver a Brexit deal to bring Britain out of the European Union, was the reason for her exit last Friday as leader of the Conservative Party. | 
