Iain Duncan Smith & Priti Patel:

Hardly a day seems to go by without another candidate entering the “race” to be leader of the Conservative Party. We say race, but this is beginning to look more like the Charge of the Light Brigade. One can only hope that it will have a better outcome, but that will depend on whether the contenders charge in the right direction and at the right target.

As this list has grown and grown, what has gone missing is the important point that this leadership election is about picking the next prime minister. Those who have thrown their hats into the ring, with minimum support but imbued with an enormous sense of self-worth, need to think a little more carefully. After all, whoever gets selected won’t have the space that a leader of the opposition has to develop into the job, to become known to the public, or to learn the ropes of government.

Instead, the new prime minister will not only face the onerous task of resolving Brexit but also of running a Cabinet that has looked depressingly and dangerously dysfunctional in recent weeks. They will need to give new energy and direction to a Government that seems to have lost its way across a range of crucial areas. It is genuinely questionable whether some of those who have declared have done so with any real understanding of this or whether they recognise the difference

between leadership in opposition and becoming prime minister.

The 1922 Committee, it is hoped, will step in to sort out what commentators are beginning to call a farce. Yet whoever becomes prime minister will have to face the fact that the Tory party is in an incredibly precarious position. It is teetering on the brink, and we should remember the fate of the Progressive Conservatives in Canada in 1993 – we do not have a right to govern or even exist as a party. The next PM will need real authority and a clear road map.

Of course we face a whole set of non-Brexit challenges domestically, such as the growing problems of social care, police funding, the Armed Forces and student fees. But none of this can be dealt with until the Conservatives deliver Brexit as we promised.

The party has fudged and slurred its way through often quite contrary positions over the EU in the past. Too many candidates now standing have simply not understood that fudging and slurring is no longer an option. In failing to grasp the enormity of the referendum result, we have connived in our own destruction.

More than that, many in the party are concerned that the Cabinet members now standing are responsible for the chaos that took place before the European Parliament elections. As Theresa May brought back her Withdrawal Bill, which included a commitment to a second referendum, these Cabinet members did nothing and sealed our fate at the elections. By staying in Cabinet and failing to stop the referendum sell-out, they must shoulder much of the blame for our terrible collapse.

Not leaving on March 29 infuriated the public. In the European elections,

at telegraph.co.uk/ opinion the voters reminded us that they were no longer prepared to see the establishment betray their vote.

Yet candidates are answering the wrong question. They are being asked: do they want no deal and, if not, then what? Their answers have been all over the place. Some have chosen the ridiculous position of saying no deal would be a disaster but that we must keep it on the table, while others have said they are prepared to leave without a deal.

Yet to cut through the guff and understand their actual position, the real question is far simpler. What we need to know is: are they prepared to rule out a further extension of Article 50 beyond October 31? For that is what will define this debate. Our only chance of rebuilding our prospects depends on our delivering Brexit by October 31 at the latest.

Knowing that we cannot go past October 31 means we must be prepared not just to negotiate our future relationship with the EU but also must have ensured that we are fully ready to leave on that date. This will mean putting in place a myriad of practical arrangements to ensure we leave as smoothly as possible without the failings of the existing Withdrawal Agreement.

This leadership election must result in three things for the party: the delivery of Brexit no later than October 31; capitalism to set people free, tempered by social justice; and strong leadership that can communicate and enthuse. Get this right and the Conservative Party will rise again.

Iain Duncan Smith is a former Conservative Party leader. Priti Patel is a former Cabinet minister

There is no point in beating about the bush. The Extinction Rebellion eco “protesters”, who are reportedly planning to shut down Heathrow airport for a day in mid-June and then for another 10 days in July, if their ludicrous demands aren’t met, are threatening what amounts to economic terrorism. They plan to fly drones above the airport if Heathrow’s third runway project is not scrapped. It is blackmail, pure and simple: if the result is that planes are grounded, as at Gatwick last year, thousands of people will have their holidays ruined and the economic cost will run into the millions; if they are not, their crime could become mass murder.

No one sane can support such “activism”. Whatever your views on climate change, and the measures necessary to stop or mitigate it, this is not cost-free or even non-violent protest. If I were to threaten to cut the power to the Treasury building, because I consider the tax burden to be an “emergency” and I deem the Government to be insufficiently serious about addressing the scandalous way our money is wasted, I would expect to be stopped from doing so. For some reason, however, Extinction Rebellion believe they should be allowed to use precisely the same arguments to shut down one of the world’s busiest airports.

Why is this the case? To be fair, the police did eventually take a hard

at telegraph.co.uk/ opinion