The Daily Telegraph - Saturday
Heappey to quit as Armed Forces minister and MP
Nick Gutteridge WHITEHALL CORRESPONDENT
JAMES HEAPPEY is set to quit as Armed Forces minister this month and stand down as an MP at the next election amid a row over defence spending.
The former soldier will step down from the post, which he has held since February 2020, to “pursue a different career” in a major blow to Rishi Sunak.
In a letter to his local Conservative association in Wells, Somerset, he said that the time had come for him to “step away from politics” and “prioritise my family”.
Mr Heappey, who is considered one of the Government’s safest pair of hands, is the 62nd Conservative MP to announce they are quitting. Sources close to him insisted his resignation was not a protest over military spending after there was no new money for the Armed Forces in the Budget.
It will nonetheless come as a significant blow to Mr Sunak and will add to the growing sense of pessimism ahead of the next general election.
Mr Heappey’s resignation comes at ‘Now is the time to step away from politics, prioritise my family, and pursue a different career’
the end of a brutal week for the Prime Minister with morale within the party at rock bottom.
In the letter to his constituents Mr Heappey, a father of two, described the decision to step away from Parliament as a “painful” one.
“I will support Rishi Sunak as our party leader and Prime Minister in government, until such time as he wishes me to step down, and then from the backbenches,” he wrote.
“A great deal has changed in my life over the last few years and I have concluded that now is the time to step away from politics, prioritise my family, and pursue a different career.”
Mr Heappey has been a key figure in the Government’s response to the war in Ukraine and has also argued internally for more spending on defence.
As a soldier Mr Heappey served in Northern Ireland, Afghanistan and Iraq during an eight-year military career in which he rose to the rank of major.
He retired in 2012 and three years later was selected to run for Wells, a historic cathedral city, winning the seat in the 2015 general election.
His resignation after nine years recently as this week considering a spring election, hence a rear-guard action behind the scenes to kill it.
At 6.30pm on Monday, members of the 1922 Committee’s executive met for face-to-face talks with the Prime Minister in his parliamentary office.
Eyebrows were raised when the Prime Minister made the first question a simple one: When should the election be held? Ten members of the 1922 executive offered thoughts, according to one present. Seven warned against a spring election. Sir Graham Brady, the 1922 chairman, who met Mr Sunak one-on-one before the wider meeting, was said to be one of them.
Another factor was the Tory Whips’ Office. Simon Hart, the Chief Whip, and his coterie of disciplinarians were also against a spring election – though any claim of rifts with No 10 is denied.
“The Whips’ Office was very clearly against an election in May,” said one Tory MP who claimed colleagues who feared keeping seats if the vote was in May had bombarded the whips pushing that point.
The political backdrop of the week was also grim. Lee Anderson, the former Tory deputy chairman, was unveiled as a Reform MP. Meanwhile headlines in the week the Government unveiled a new extremism definition were dominated by a report Tory mega donor Frank Hester said Diane Abbott made him want to “hate all black women”. in Parliament comes just a week after Theresa May, the former prime minister, announced she would be stepping down.
Mr Sunak has faced a rising tide of MPs standing down ahead of the next election, which has created fears there is a “stench of death” around the Tories.
So far 62 have announced they are leaving the Commons, approaching the record of 75 set in the run-up to the Labour landslide in 1997.
Some Tory MPs fear the final number could hit three figures if the election is delayed until this winter given the party’s rock bottom poll ratings.
Richard Foord, the Liberal Democrats’ defence spokesman, said: “This is yet another blow to Rishi Sunak’s authority, as another Conservative minister abandons his failing government.
“Sunak needs to put the country out of its misery and call an election now instead of allowing this farce to drag on any longer.”
Ex-soldier’s resignation comes after no additional defence spending was announced in the Budget
The political logic for why autumn is seen almost universally in Tory circles as the most likely election date is clear.
For one, the chances are the economic indicators will be in a better place in six months’ time. Inflation is set to drop again in figures released this coming Wednesday. Treasury analysis points to it returning to 2 per cent in either the figure for May or June, in what is being planned as a victory declaration moment. The National Insurance cuts will have had longer to be felt come the autumn. Also economic growth would, if forecasts prove correct, have picked up.
And then there is a second reason – small boats. The Rwanda Bill is back in Parliament and due to pass on either Wednesday or Thursday. The first deportation flights are being planned for May, and the summer could see even more.
Some are circling October as the most likely election month, to avoid a clash with the US election on Nov 5. A
report of a cancellation request for the City of London’s Lord Mayor’s banquet, always attended by the Prime Minister and pencilled in for Nov 11, is seen as a hint that month is still in the running. Either would require a September declaration. And that means a long hot summer of election date speculation still looms.
But for Downing Street advisers now booking holidays for April and May, that can wait until another day.
‘The political logic for why autumn is seen as the most likely election date is clear’