Duncan Smith urges party to speed up the race

Former leader is seeking to avoid ‘chaos’ in a contest with an unprecedented number of candidates

IAIN DUNCAN SMITH believes that the Conservative Party’s leadership election rules need to be changed to avoid the “chaos” of a contest with more than a dozen candidates.

The former Tory leader said the battle to replace Theresa May must be as swift as possible because MPS were not just electing a new party leader but also the next prime minister.

The race was “beyond anything we have experienced before” because of the number of candidates, he said, as he called for the whittling-down process by MPS to be streamlined so the final two contenders were put to the party membership as soon as possible.

“I think there are two elements I hope the [1922 Committee] will look at,” he said.

“One is how many people does it take to nominate somebody. At the moment it is very low, a couple of people, but I think there needs to be a threshold much higher, maybe 10, maybe 12 people. The second thing is each round, instead of having just one drop off they need to look at whether two or even three drop off in the early rounds to try and accelerate the process.

“It may not be popular but I think given the nature of the fact we need to present a face of a party that actually can get jobs done we don’t want to have this meandering around looking like chaos.”

His comments came as the race to take over from Mrs May stepped up a gear with leading contenders clashing over feminism and whether primary school children should be taught about LGBT relationships. Dominic Raab was criticised after he told ITV he was “probably not” a feminist but was a “champion of equality and meritocracy”. Home Secretary Sajid Javid’s campaign team challenged Mr Raab over the statement as they tweeted a picture of the plasticine animated character Morph, who the leadership contender compares himself to, along with an emoji of a bald man and said “this is what a feminist looks like”.

Mr Raab yesterday published a new campaign film in which he criticised Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party over its handling of anti-semitism allegations. Explaining how his father had fled the Holocaust, Mr Raab said Labour had “become a stain on our country” because of its “inaction” over the issue.

The former Brexit secretary also suggested he would seek to sideline Parliament to prevent MPS from blocking a no-deal split from the European Union on October 31 in the event the UK was unable to secure an improved divorce deal from Brussels. “I would use every lever of the executive to make sure that we could execute government policy,” he told The Spectator.

Separately, Esther Mcvey became embroiled in a spat after she said she supported parents taking their children out of new relationship education lessons at school that include information about LGBT relationships.

Ms Mcvey said “parents know best for their children” but she was challenged by Justine Greening, the former education secretary, who told the former work and pensions secretary: “You can’t pick and choose on human rights and equality.” Amber Rudd said Ms Greening was “quite right” and that a “modern Tory Party should not just be proud of our LGBT achievements, but champion them”.

Philip Hammond also became involved in the debate after suggesting a second referendum would be more likely to resolve the Brexit impasse

‘We need to present a face of a party that actually can get jobs done. We don’t want to have this meandering around’

than a general election. The Chancellor said it was his “strong preference” for Parliament to find a way through the current stalemate but if that proved impossible “clearly it will have to be re- mitted back to the people”.

He said he was unsure a general election would resolve the matter given how badly divided both the Tories and Labour are over Brexit as he hinted he would prefer a second public vote.

Although he admitted he was a “divisive figure” within his party, he left open the possibility of entering the leadership race if he concluded that no candidate adequately represented his views on leaving the EU.