Tory moderates vow to stop Boris becoming leader
‘I think the public will be very cynical’ ‘He is a formidable campaigner’
MODERATE Tories appeared to step up efforts to frustrate the leadership ambitions of Boris Johnson last night, launching a new grouping opposed to a No Deal Brexit.
Around 40 MPs have signed up to the One Nation Group which will be led by Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd and former education secretary Nicky Morgan.
The faction, which is aiming to be a counterweight to the European Research Group, is planning to host its own hustings in any future party leadership contest and has ruled out supporting anyone who wants a No Deal departure.
Mr Johnson, however, did get some backing from an unlikely quarter last night – Tony Blair. The former PM claimed the Tories could beat Labour in a general election, if ‘formidable’ Mr Johnson was leader.
High profile members of the One Nation Group also include Business Secretary Greg Clark, Justice Secretary David Gauke, Scottish Secretary David Mundell, energy minister Claire Perry, as well as Damian Green and Sir Nicholas Soames.
Sir John Major yesterday criticised potential leadership candidates for jockeying for position instead of focusing on attempts to get the Brexit deal passed.
He told the BBC’s Andrew Marr programme: 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.’
Sir John appeared to criticise hopefuls such as Mr Johnson, Esther McVey and Dominic Raab, who last week backed Mrs May’s Brexit deal despite making dire warnings about it.
‘I find it extraordinarily odd that there are people who decided the Prime Minister’s deal was going to turn us into a vassal state and they voted against it. Once it is apparent there’s going to be a leadership election and one of them might become prime minister, the question of a vassal state disappears and they support it,’ he said. ‘I think the public will be very cynical about that.
‘I don’t know when the Prime Minister will go and nobody can be certain... but when we elect a new prime minister I think it has to be someone who can be a national leader, not a factional leader and I think that does disqualify a number of candidates.’
Sir John also said the UK will always have a centre-right party and a centre-left party, adding: ‘Whether that’s exactly the same Conservative Party as we have now or not, I can’t be certain – but that there will be a Conservative Party on the centre-right of politics, but it needs to be at the centre-right if it wishes to win, not the far-right.’
Several senior Tories yesterday appeared to be on manoeuvres to replace Mrs May this weekend.
Liz Truss, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, called for the Conservative party to ‘remodernise’ as she set out her stall in a newspaper interview. Miss Truss, who backed Remain in the referendum and was previously in charge at the Ministry of Justice and Defra, picked out cutting taxes for businesses and stamp duty for young home buyers as key policies.
She told The Sunday Times: ‘Sometimes politics can be in danger of being managerial. The Conservative Party needs to remodernise. We need to be optimistic, aspirational. We need to participate in the battle of ideas. We haven’t been doing.’
Other Cabinet ministers tipped to join the race when the time comes include Environment Secretary Michael Gove, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, Work and Pensions Secretary Miss Rudd, Home Secretary Sajid Javid and House of Commons leader Andrea Leadsom. Mr Johnson, Miss McVey and Mr Raab, who all quit the Cabinet in protest at Mrs May’s handling of Brexit, are also expected to go for No 10. Mr Raab, a former Brexit Secretary, yesterday attempted to outflank hostile competition by addressing allegations that he used a non-disclosure agreement, also known as a ‘gagging order’, to silence a former colleague who accused him of bullying.
He told The Sunday Times the claims were ‘completely false’, while his allies suggested they were being deployed as part of a ‘smear campaign’.
Another former Cabinet minister, Justine Greening, said she ‘might’ run for the Tory leadership. In an interview with The Sunday Times, she said the party needed a leader for the ‘2020s, not the 1920s’.
‘It’s 32 years since we had a landslide and we have to answer the question about why we have failed to connect with people and their ambitions,’ she told the paper.
Miss Greening, a prominent Remain campaigner, quit as education secretary when Mrs May attempted to make her the work and pensions chief in early 2018.
Mr Blair last night told the HuffPost UK news website that Mr Johnson was a ‘formidable campaigner’ who would pose a powerful challenge to Labour at a general election. ‘If you have a Boris Johnson-led Conservative Party, he’s a formidable campaigner, he’s an interesting personality, he can get out there and do his stuff, for sure,’ he said. ‘I have absolutely no doubt if you have a right-wing populism against a left-wing populism in this country, the rightwing will win. So it depends where we [Labour] stand.’
Mrs May last week promised to step down if MPs passed her Brexit deal.