Tom Tugendhat, chairman of the foreign affairs committee, announced his candidacy last night vowing to turn the Conservative Party into a “broad church”. A close ally of Grant Shapps announced that the transport secretary was also considering a bid. Tugendhat is a member of the One Nation Conservative Group and has already asked several MPs to declare their support for him despite his lack of ministerial experience. In a piece for The Daily Telegraphhe promised to scrap the recent rise in national insurance, cut fuel duty and lift tariffs on foreign imports. He was joined by Shapps, who had been described as a “great choice” for leader by his friend and ally Robert Courts, a minister in his department. Courts said the party needed someone “who has experience” and “can campaign” – a reference to Sapps’ previous role as Tory party chairman. “Someone like Grant Shapps, my boss, would be a great choice,” he told the BBC Newsnight. “I’ve seen him work up close and I think he’s done a great job.” The leadership race is expected to be one of the most open in recent history with more than ten candidates expected to declare. Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss, Sajid Javid, Ben Wallace, Nadhim Zahawi and Jeremy Hunt are expected to run. Suella Braverman and Steve Baker have already declared their candidacy. Among those also believed to be considering a bid are Priti Patel, the home secretary, Jake Berry, head of Conservative MPs’ Northern Research Group, and Kemi Badenoch, a junior minister and rising star in the party. Conservative MPs want Johnson’s successor by early September, despite calls from Sir John Major for him to step down now. Graphics by Herman Hille-Dahl, Anthony Cappaert, Lucy Wright and Ademola Bello, illustrated by Russel Herneman
The EU hopes to restore relations
Labor will seek a vote of confidence in the government next week if Boris Johnson is not removed as prime minister. Angela Rayner, the deputy Labor leader, said Johnson should leave Downing Street immediately and called on the Conservatives to “work together”. “He has no confidence in his party, he’s a proven liar who has been overwhelmed by the mess, and we can’t have another two months of this. So we have to get rid of him and if they don’t we will ask for a vote of confidence,” he told the BBC. Today program. Rayner said she and Sir Keir Starmer, the party leader, could be replaced “very quickly” if fined by Durham Police for breaching coronavirus rules. Both promised to resign if found to have broken the law by drinking beer and eating curry while on the campaign trail last year. “We have a lot of talent in our party that could go forward because we are a team and we are a government in waiting,” he said. “But as I say, both myself and Keir are very confident that we didn’t break any rules.”
The EU hopes to restore relations
The European Union hopes a new prime minister will be ready to restore relations after what is seen as Johnson’s welcome exit. Prague will host a gathering of EU leaders on October 6 as well as a wider pan-European summit and the Czechs will extend an invitation to Britain on the hope that a new Conservative leader is open to “resetting” relations with Europe. EU governments are happy to see the back of Johnson, and France is celebrating his resignation as party leader and Tory political turmoil as a deserved defeat of “populism”. “I won’t miss him. It proves, in any case, that Brexit combined with populism is not a good cocktail for a nation,” French Finance Minister Bruno le Maire said today. Prague is pushing for the UK to be invited to talks to create a European Political Community based on common security interests outside the NATO defense umbrella. “It would be good to bring the UK to the summit and discuss a new European political community,” said a senior European diplomatic source closely involved in the talks. “There is openness and willingness on our part to turn over a new page in the relationship.” Theresa May was filmed happily dancing at the Henley Festival last night just hours after Boris Johnson announced he was standing down (Charlie Moloney writes). May, wearing a red dress, appeared to be having a lot of fun at the festival in Oxfordshire, near her Maidenhead constituency. In footage posted on Twitter, she can be seen dancing to his tune My heart was waiting for you by Craig David, who hosted the show. Jim Murphy, a former Labor MP, tweeted: “We all have different ways of celebrating the death of Boris Johnson. I’m at the Henley Festival and so is Theresa May’s dance!” Theresa May at the Henley Festival yesterday BACKGRID May’s dancing has been infamous since she attempted dance diplomacy on a prime ministerial tour of Africa in 2018, when she was recorded strutting her stuff with students at a high school in Cape Town. The lack of rhythm had caused her great mirth. Within days May was seen dancing again, with much more enthusiasm but no greater skill, at the UN Campus in Nairobi, where she participated in a dance performance with Girl Scouts. On May’s return to Europe, she was ambushed by EU leaders in Salzburg, who overturned her Brexit Checkers plan in September 2018. May even managed to win some applause from her Conservative party colleagues when she self-deprecatingly danced on stage at the Conservative Party conference to the tune of Abba. The prom queen the upcoming week.
Case charged for failure to stand up to PM
The head of the civil service acted like a “car accident bystander”, said a former senior official. Sir David Normington has accused Simon Case, the cabinet secretary, of failing to stand up to Boris Johnson during the turmoil of the past two years. Normington, a former permanent secretary at the Home Office, said Case would play a key role in ensuring Johnson’s caretaker government kept the prime minister’s promise not to make major policy decisions and said it was time the cabinet minister ” to step up”. “A key figure in the coming weeks is Cabinet Secretary Simon Case,” Normington said Today on BBC Radio 4. “He has to set some rules, he has to draw some lines.” Asked if he thought Keyes would be able to rein in Johnson during the coming months of the caretaker government, he said: “I’m a bit doubtful about that, he presided over a fall in standards. He had a very difficult prime minister to deal with, but at times he looked like the bystander in a car accident. This is the time to step up.”
Candidates have an ‘inflated sense of self-awareness’
With the leadership race still in its infancy, one Conservative MP mocked the whole process and accused the candidates of having an “inflated sense of self-importance”. Mark Jenkinson, the MP for Workington, has published a false statement of candidacy to mock others who have launched their leadership bids. “I asked for advice from those I can trust to blow my smoke,” he said. “This, when weighed against my own inflated sense of self-importance, leads me to the conclusion that I should throw my hat in the ring and stand for election as leader of the Conservative and Unionist Party.” “For the next six weeks I will be available to promise you the moon on a stick. Ask and it will be yours.” “Let me worry about how I deal with three chancellors and a cabinet of 160. It’s having the answers to those questions that makes me the most suitable candidate.” Jenkinson’s victory in Cumbria in 2019 epitomizes how Boris Johnson won ‘Workington Man’ support in former Labor seats in the North and Midlands.
You’re in no hurry for Johnson to leave, says the Clever One
James Cleverley, the education secretary, said Johnson would remain in his post until a new leader was elected. “He said he’s going to stay until the process is done, he hasn’t put a timetable on that,” he told Times Radio. “The timetable for this will be set by the 1922 Committee at the parliamentary stage and by the Conservative Party at the party stage. “Both organizations know how important it is to get this done professionally and quickly and I don’t think the Prime Minister has set a specific date for anything.”
