Home secretary announces bid as hopefuls weigh up whether to take part in TV debate

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Sajid Javid declared his candidacy for the Conservative leadership on Monday, telling members: “First and foremost, we must deliver Brexit.”

The home secretary made his announcement in a video posted on Twitter. He said: “As last night’s results made all too clear, we must get on and deliver Brexit,” adding it was important to “restore trust, bring unity, and create new opportunities across the UK”.

Javid, 49, is the latest entrant in a crowded field of nine candidates so far. Born in Rochdale, the son of a bus driver, he is the first person of Asian origin to stand to become leader of the Tories and ultimately prime minister.

Play Video 1:08 'It's time to rebuild trust': Sajid Javid enters Tory leadership race – video

A long-term supporter for leaving the EU, opponents say he could still struggle to win over Brexiters because he voted to remain in the EU referendum.

Javid worked in the City before entering politics and became the first BAME Briton to hold one of the great offices of state.

His enemies in the party concede that he, like John Major, has a compelling backstory. They also claim that, like Theresa May, his delivery is wooden and he would fail to persuade Parliament either in debate or in the clubbable environment of Westminster’s tea rooms.

Javid has recently been criticised by church leaders for refusing to review his controversial decision to strip the 19-year-old Shamima Begum of British citizenship – a move that left her stateless and her baby in legal limbo. Her child has since died.

His announcement came after another candidate, Dominic Raab, challenged his rivals to take part in a televised debate. Raab’s challenge immediately raised concerns that such a debate would further expose gaping divisions across the party.

Two of Raab’s leadership rivals, Andrea Leadsom and the foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, have welcomed his TV debate proposal. Boris Johnson, the favourite to succeed Theresa May, has been asked for a response.

Raab officially joined the party’s leadership race on Sunday, but has been signing up MPs as supporters for several weeks.

He and Javid join Hunt, the international development secretary, Rory Stewart; the health secretary, Matt Hancock; the environment secretary, Michael Gove; and former work and pensions secretary Esther McVey, who are all vying for the leadership.

On Monday night, the housing minister Kit Malthouse told the Sun he was also joining the leadership race.

In a statement meant to increase pressure upon his competitors, Raab said: “I hope that the other candidates take me up on my suggestion of holding a televised debate so that we can test each other’s plans on Brexit.”

Matt Hancock has written to all major broadcasters asking them to televise a debate between the party’s candidates.

In a letter seen by the Guardian, the former culture secretary asks the BBC, ITN and Sky to consider it to be a “national debate about the future direction of the UK”.

“Rather than just an internal-facing party conversation, we need a truly national debate about the future direction of the UK,” he added.

Other rivals are mulling over the suggestion, conscious that Johnson has previously struggled when pressurised by fellow Tories.

Play Video 2:01 As Theresa May resigns, how will she be remembered? – video

During ITV’s referendum debate in 2016, Amber Rudd, then the energy secretary, memorably described Johnson as the “life and soul of the party but not the man you want driving you home at the end of the evening”.

One aide to a leadership candidate said a debate could, without careful management, permanently damage the party. “We have to decide if we are going to expose ourselves to an all-out bunfight on the EU. It could turn out to be a race to the bottom,” the aide said.

There are fears among Tory moderates that many of the eight declared leadership candidates will adopt hardline Brexit positions to win over 160,000 party members. They will choose who is to be the next prime minister from a shortlist of two candidates whittled down by MPs.

On Monday, after the EU election results, Johnson warned his party that it would face a fresh drubbing if it did not deliver Brexit “properly”.

“The message from these results is clear,” he wrote in his column for the Daily Telegraph. “If we go on like this, we will be fired: dismissed from the job of running the country.

“The only way to avert that outcome is to honour the result of the 2016 referendum, and come out of the EU; and that means doing it properly – not with some frail simulacrum of Brexit, but clearly and sensibly, so that we are able to join every other independent country in being able to set our own tariffs and make our own laws.”

Leadsom issued a statement on Monday describing the results as “truly terrible”.

“It is now vital we now find a way to decisively leave the EU … I have a three-step plan for how we deliver Brexit which I look forward to discussing further during the leadership campaign,” she said.

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McVey said the UK should leave the EU in five months’ time with a “clean break” and should not appease those who voted for a second referendum.

“People saying we need a Brexit policy to bring people together are misreading the situation. That is clearly not possible. We need to deliver on the referendum result with a clean break and then we bring people together by how we govern the country outside the EU,” she said.

Hunt, though, warned his rivals that pursuing a no-deal Brexit would be ruinous for the Tories. “Any candidate for prime minister whose strategy leads inexorably to a general election is offering a prospectus for disaster,” he told the Telegraph.

“Trying to deliver no deal through a general election is not a solution. It is political suicide that would delight Nigel Farage and probably put Jeremy Corbyn in No 10 by Christmas.”

Jesse Norman, the treasury minister, meanwhile disclosed that he is also considering standing to be the next Tory leader.

In a series of tweets, he wrote: “It’s already a crowded field, and my reply has been that the views of my constituents, party members and colleagues should shape that decision, and I will carefully consult among them.”