Waiting until after conference would allow new generation of candidates to emerge

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Downing Street hopes to delay any Conservative party leadership contest until October in a move that will hamper the campaigns of established candidates such as Boris Johnson, Jeremy Hunt and Sajid Javid.

As Tory contenders began manoeuvres this weekend to replace Theresa May after the third defeat of her Brexit deal, sources confirmed that those close to her will push for a new prime minister to be chosen after the party’s conference at the end of September.

While her allies insist this would give May a dignified exit, others point out it would give time to settle on a candidate from a younger generation to come through to take on the established rank of leadership hopefuls.

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A second tier of contenders has emerged, which includes the Tories’ deputy chair, James Cleverly, who has been urged by colleagues to stand, sources said.

Other names being put forward include Tom Tugendhat, the chair of the foreign affairs select committee, and the former army captain Johnny Mercer.

They join Johnson, Hunt, Javid, Amber Rudd, Michael Gove, Gavin Williamson, Andrea Leadsom and Matt Hancock, who are considering standing.

An informed source said: “They might claim that this is being argued in the party to give May a good sendoff, but it looks like a way of cutting out the current candidates.

“It could backfire because pushing the decision back to Tory conference you are hampering any influence that a new PM might have to establish a new EU negotiating team before trade negotiations.”

Liz Truss, the chief secretary to the Treasury, the former Brexit secretary Dominic Raab and the former education secretary Justine Greening gave interviews or wrote articles setting out their views on policy issues.

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Truss, who backed remain in the referendum, told the Sunday Times that cutting taxes for businesses and stamp duty for young home buyers were her key policies for the future.

In an article for the Sunday Telegraph, Raab set out plans to tackle knife crime – one of the main domestic issues May has faced during her premiership.

His focus on knife crime also takes on Javid, the home secretary, who on Sunday announced new measures in an effort to tackle the problem.

The MP for Esher and Walton has also attempted to outflank hostile competition by addressing allegations swirling around Westminster that he used a “gagging order” to silence a former colleague who accused him of bullying.

Raab told the Sunday Times the claims were “completely false”, while his allies suggested they were being deployed as part of a smear campaign by opponents.

Greening disclosed she might run as leader in an interview, adding that the party needed a leader for the “2020s, not the 1920s”.

“It’s 32 years since we had a landslide … Until we have a leadership that understands why that’s happened, we won’t be able to change it,” she told the Sunday Times.

Dozens of moderate Tories, including senior cabinet ministers, have signed up to a powerful new party group in an attempt to stop the Conservatives swinging to the right during the leadership race.

Rudd has been joined by Damian Green, Nicky Morgan and Sir Nicholas Soames to form the One Nation Group, said to comprise 40 MPs who want to find a candidate committed to blocking a no-deal Brexit.

The move comes as MPs, including some in government, warn that they believe entryism by pro-Brexit supporters at local Conservative associations risks delivering a leader willing to back a hard break with the EU.

It follows an outcry after Dominic Grieve, the pro-remain former attorney general, lost a confidence vote held by his local party.

Sir John Major spoke out on Sunday to say he found it “extraordinarily odd” that some MPs opposed May’s Brexit deal on the basis it would turn the UK into a “vassal state” before supporting it when a chance of them becoming leader emerged.

Johnson, the Tory former foreign secretary, and Jacob Rees-Mogg, the chairman of the Tory Brexit-backing European Research Group, have both issued “vassal state” warnings during the Brexit talks but gave their support to the withdrawal agreement last week.

Major warned that the Conservative party must be on the centre-right of politics, “not the far right”, if it wished to win elections.

Asked about those Tory MPs outlining their leadership ambitions, Major told BBC One’s The Andrew Marr Show that it would not change the difficulties of getting Brexit through parliament.

“I think they should concentrate on the decision we should make next week, not who is going to be prime minister at some future stage. Of course, a new leader may, depending upon who it is, have less baggage than a prime minister who’s had to fight for everything from the moment she went into Downing Street. So that would change.

“But it doesn’t change the numbers. It doesn’t change the arithmetic. It doesn’t change the instincts and convictions of people both in the remain and in the leave camp.”