Javid to quit as MP at next election as Tories face defeat
EX-CHANCELLOR MOST HIGH-PROFILE LEADER YET TO STEP BACK
FORMER chancellor and health secretary Sajid Javid said last Friday (2) he would not be standing at the next election, as the Conservative party faces a slump in support after 12 years in power.
Javid, 52, is the highest-profile Tory MP yet to announce that he will quit at the next nationwide poll, which is due before January 2025 at the latest.
The Tories, in office since 2010, are on course for defeat by the Labour party, according to opinion polls, and several younger Tory MPs have said they will not be standing again.
A by-election held in the City of Chester constituency last Thursday (1) saw Labour retain the seat as expected, but the Tories haemorrhage support. Political observers assessed that it mirrored an expected swing to Labour at the next general election.
A series of scandals under former prime minister Boris Johnson, and the political and financial turmoil caused by his short-lived successor Liz Truss, have badly dented support for the Tories.
Javid – a cabinet minister under David Cameron, Theresa May and Johnson – said he had thought long and hard about the decision. He wrote in a letter to the head of his Bromsgrove constituency that being an MP and in government had been “the privilege of my life”.
“I am immensely grateful for the opportunity to serve,” the millionaire former investment banker added.
Javid, the son of a Pakistani immigrant bus driver, was Britain’s first Muslim home secretary and chancellor of the exchequer.
He also served as health secretary and campaigned earlier this year to take over from Johnson.
He quit the Treasury in February 2020 after refusing an order from 10 Downing Street to fire all his special advisers. He was replaced by Rishi Sunak, who is now prime minister.
Sunak said he was “sad” to see his “good friend” and fellow “Star Wars” fan Javid go. “May the Force be with you, Saj,” he added.
“He’s been a proud champion of enterprise and opportunity during his time in government and on the backbenches,” Sunak said on Twitter.
The Conservative party has given its MPs until December 5 to declare whether they will run in the next election, when many constituency maps will be redrawn.