Priti Patel rules out running for Tory leadership
Heather Stewart
Priti Patel, the home secretary, has put out a statement saying she will not be standing for the Tory leadership.
She is not backing any other candidates, but she does not rule out doing so later in the contest. She says:
I am grateful for the encouragement and support colleagues and party members have offered me in recent days in suggesting that I enter the contest for the leadership of the Conservative party. I will not be putting my name forward for the ballot of MPs.
As home secretary I have always put the security and safety of our country and the national interest first and my focus is to continue working to get more police on our streets, support our amazing security services to keep our country safe and control our borders
As a lifelong and committed Conservative, I will always make the case for freedom, enterprise and opportunity and work with colleagues to deliver these values in government. Like all Conservative MPs and party members, I will be listening to cases being put forward by the candidates standing for the leadership of the party and trust the contest will be conducted in a good spirit that brings our party together.
Priti Patel in the Commons last month. Photograph: UK Parliament/Jessica Taylor/PAKey events:
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Labour accuses No 10 of ‘flagrant abuse of power’ after it refuses to allow no confidence debate in government tomorrowDowning Street is refusing to allow time for a no-confidence vote tomorrow, HuffPost reports.
According to Erskine May, the bible for parliamentary procedure, the government is meant to find time for a debate on a no confidence motion tabled by the official opposition without delay. It says:
From time to time the opposition has put down a motion on the paper expressing lack of confidence in the government or otherwise criticising its general conduct. By established convention, the government always accedes to the demand from the leader of the opposition to allot a day for the discussion of a motion tabled by the official opposition which, in the government’s view, would have the effect of testing the confidence of the house. In allotting a day for this purpose, the government is entitled to have regard to the exigencies of its own business, but a reasonably early day is invariably found.
This convention is founded on the recognised position of the opposition as a potential government, which guarantees the legitimacy of such an interruption of the normal course of business. For its part, the government has everything to gain by meeting such a direct challenge to its authority at the earliest possible moment.
A Labour spokesperson said:
This clapped-out government is running scared and refusing to allow time to debate Labour’s vote of no confidence motion. This is totally unprecedented. Yet again the Tories are changing the rules to protect their own dodgy mates. All the Tory leadership candidates should denounce this flagrant abuse of power to protect a discredited prime minister.
With only two and a half hours to go before nominations close for the Conservative leadership, only four candidates have already got the 20 public endorsements they need: Rishi Sunak, Penny Mordaunt, Liz Truss and Tom Tudendhat. Kemi Badenoch is quite close. But other candidates are struggling. The Guido Fawkes website has a good spreadsheet with the names.
Penny Mordaunt has removed from her campaign video a short clip showing Jo Cox, the Labour MP who was murdered, after concerns were raised by Cox’s family, the Yorkshire Post’s Caitlin Doherty reports.
NEW: Footage of murdered MP Jo Cox has been removed from a Conservative leadership candidate’s campaign video after concerns were raised by her family, the @YorkshirePost has
— Caitlin Doherty (@_CaitlinDoherty) July 12, 2022 What will happen when Conservative party members get to choose between the final two candidates on the ballot?
According to an Opinium poll, Rishi Sunak would currently beat both Liz Truss and Penny Mordaunt in a straight head-to-head contest. But his lead over Truss is tiny (four points), and his lead over Mordaunt is not much bigger (seven points), and with more than 20% of respondents undecided, in reality both contests would – on these figures – be wide open.
Rishi Sunak is currently the Conservative members’ preferred option to succeed Boris Johnson, according to the latest Opinium & @Channel4News.
He would currently beat Liz Truss or Penny Mordaunt in the final members ballot, although over a fifth have yet to make their mind up. pic.twitter.com/t6ukFzJQzQ
— Opinium (@OpiniumResearch) July 12, 2022 But what if these figure are wrong? The ConservativeHome website conducts its own regular survey for a panel of Conservative party members and today it has also been publishing the results of its own poll on how they would vote in a series of one-to-one contests. These figures suggest that Sunak would lose to Truss and Mordaunt – by 17 points and 27 points respectively. The website still has not published its final results, but the figures available so far suggests the strongest candidates are Penny Mordaunt and Kemi Badenoch.
Is this credible? This is a survey, not a poll (the results are not weighted to make them reflective of the Conservative party membership), and its “don’t know” numbers are much lower than they are in the Opinium poll. That may be because the ConservatieHome panel members are polled regularly, and have been following the contest closely. Many real party members may be less engaged, and this may be why the Opinium poll shows almost a quarter of them having no view yet.
But in the past ConservativeHome surveys have proved to be reasonably reliable guides to the outcome of Tory party elections. And it is engaged members who vote. A Sunak victory in the final round seems far from inevitable.
Of course, what happens in the campaign, and during hustings, can make a difference, although in the last three Tory leadership contests one candidate was the clear favourite when the membership ballot opened (David Cameron, Theresa May and Boris Johnson) and that candidate always won. May was such a clear favourite that Andrea Leadsom pulled out before membership hustings event started.
Priti Patel, the home secretary, is likely to end up endorsing Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, according to the Times’ Steven Swinford.
Who Priti Patel endorses for the next round will be critical to the outcome of the Tory leadership contest – and who makes it through to the final two
I’m told she’s weighing up backing either Liz Truss or Nadhim Zahawi – some say Truss is the more likely option
— Steven Swinford (@Steven_Swinford) July 12, 2022 A second Priti Patel ally tells me she’s likely to endorse Liz Truss, although it’s not formally confirmed yet
She brings with her 12 Tory MPs who have already publicly backed her – but critically holds huge sway with the ERG
— Steven Swinford (@Steven_Swinford) July 12, 2022 The ERG is the European Research Group – the caucus for Tory MPs who are strongly pro-Brexit.
So it looks increasingly as those Liz Truss, who backed Remain, is likely to emerge as the most popular candidate among Brexiteers
Meanwhile Rishi Sunak, who backed Brexit, is emerging as most popular candidate for centrists
— Steven Swinford (@Steven_Swinford) July 12, 2022 The former health secretary Matt Hancock is backing Rishi Sunak for next Tory leader.
Priti Patel rules out running for Tory leadership
Heather Stewart
Priti Patel, the home secretary, has put out a statement saying she will not be standing for the Tory leadership.
She is not backing any other candidates, but she does not rule out doing so later in the contest. She says:
I am grateful for the encouragement and support colleagues and party members have offered me in recent days in suggesting that I enter the contest for the leadership of the Conservative party. I will not be putting my name forward for the ballot of MPs.
As home secretary I have always put the security and safety of our country and the national interest first and my focus is to continue working to get more police on our streets, support our amazing security services to keep our country safe and control our borders
As a lifelong and committed Conservative, I will always make the case for freedom, enterprise and opportunity and work with colleagues to deliver these values in government. Like all Conservative MPs and party members, I will be listening to cases being put forward by the candidates standing for the leadership of the party and trust the contest will be conducted in a good spirit that brings our party together.
Priti Patel in the Commons last month. Photograph: UK Parliament/Jessica Taylor/PARishi Sunak is racing ahead of other candidates in terms of endorsement, according to Sky’s Tom Larkin, who has been keeping a tally.
🐎 Runners + Riders 🐎
A big day for counting! Here’s the Sky News tally:
🔷 1: Sunak streaking ahead – added 2 ministers today
🔷 2: Mordaunt second + leading Con Home poll of members
🔷 3: Tugendhat – rumours he’ll get Hunt support
🔷 4: Truss hoovering up Boris loyalists pic.twitter.com/xMyHPyLiIB
— Tom Larkin (@TomLarkinSky) July 12, 2022 Tugendhat promises ‘leadership with renewed sense of mission’The third campaign launch this morning was Tom Tugendhat’s. Here are the main points from his launch.
Tugendhat said he would offer “leadership with a renewed sense of mission” and a “clean start”. He said he would cut fuel tax by 10p a litre, and reverse the national insurance increase. He said: I am here to make the case that our economy can only prosper if we believe that people – and not Westminster – know best how to spend their money.
I know the pain families are feeling now. That is why my first pledge is to take fuel duty down by 10p a litre.
My second is to reverse the national insurance rise.
This isn’t about percentages. It’s about jobs.
That’s why I didn’t vote for the increase then, and I wouldn’t now.
He dismissed claims that his lack of ministerial experience was a problem, saying that his record as a soldier showed she could provide leadership. He said: The reality is that the job of prime minister is unlike every other job in government. It’s not a management job, it’s not a departmental job. It’s a job that demands vision and leadership, it demands a willingness to serve and to throw everything in the duty of serving the British people.
This is no time to learn. What this is, is a time to look at a record of service and a record of delivery in some of the most difficult and trying conditions around the world, and to see that this isn’t learning on the job, this is putting all that experience to work on the job.
He stressed his commitment to levelling up, saying he wanted to have new institutes of technology in every major town and city in the UK. (Tugendhat was the only leadership candidate to attend the recent conference held by Tory Northern Research Group of MPs and its chair, Jake Berry, is one of his backers.) He claimed that he had a 10-year strategy for growth. He said that he wanted to release £100bn in investment funds for “regenerating our communities and building homes” by taking advantage of the UK’s ability to diverge from the EU’s solvency II regulations for insurers. Tom Tugendhat at his campaign launch this morning. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The GuardianTruss ‘a stronger Brexiteer’ than me and Rees-Mogg, claims DorriesThis is what Nadine Dorries, the culture secretary, said when she declared earlier that she was backing Liz Truss for Tory leader. (See 10.58am.) She said:
I have sat with Liz in cabinet now for some time. [I’m] very aware that she’s probably a stronger Brexiteer than the both of us.
She has consistently argued for low tax policies and I’m particularly concerned about the 14m people who voted for a manifesto and voted for a government that the candidate that we select, for me it’s Liz who I’m going to back, will continue with those manifesto policies and will continue to deliver for the government and the Conservative party moving forward.
“She’s as strong a Brexiteer as either of us… Liz was always opposed to Rishi’s higher taxes, that again is proper Conservatism”
Nadine Dorries and Jacob Rees-Mogg back Liz Truss to be the next Conservative leader and PM t.co/CWpTm6xMJt pic.twitter.com/NEtBmpG4ck
— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) July 12, 2022 Keir Starmer has said Labour is tabling a no-confidence motion in the government for debate tomorrow so that Tory MPs can put the country first. He said:
The Tory party has at last concluded that the prime minister is unfit for office – that was blindingly obvious a very, very long time ago.
They can’t now let him cling on for weeks, and weeks, and weeks, until 5 September. It would be intolerable for the country …
We’re challenging [Tory MPs] to put their constituents first, and put the country first.
Cabinet ministers and other Tories are to blame for letting Johnson undermine standards in public life, says John MajorSir John Major, the former Conservative prime minister, has said that cabinet ministers and other senior Tory MPs should have spoken about about the damage that Boris Johnson was doing to standards in government.
Giving evidence to the Commons public administration and constitutional affairs committee, he said Johnson’s government committed many ethical breaches. He said:
The government has broken the law, unlawfully tried to prorogue parliament, ignored the nationwide lockdown by breaking its own laws in Downing Street and tried to change parliamentary rules to protect one of their own.
That isn’t intended to be an exclusive list and it isn’t, but the damage from that is widespread and beyond parliament.
And Johnson was not single-handedly to blame, Major said:
What has been done in the last three years has damaged our country at home and overseas and I think has damaged the reputation of parliament as well.
The blame for these lapses must lie principally – principally, but not only – with the prime minister, but many in his cabinet are culpable too and so are those outside the cabinet who cheered him on.
They were silent when they should have spoken out and then spoke out only when their silence became self-damaging.
Sir John Major. Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PABadenoch says state should be smaller and do less, instead of pandering to ‘every campaigner with moving message’Kemi Badenoch, the equalities minister, is one of the more junior figures in the Conservative leadership contest, but she is probably the one with most appeal to ideological rightwingers. Reading the speech she gave at her campaign launch, which was at the Institute for Government at the same time as Rishi Sunak’s, it is not hard to see why. Here are the main points.
Badenoch called for a smaller state, saying government should do less. She said: The truth that limited government – doing less but better – is the best way to restore faith in government has been forgotten, as we pandered to pressure groups and caved in to every campaigner with a moving message
That has made the government agenda into a shopping list of disconnected, unworkable and unsustainable policies.
She cited cutting the number of young people going to university, cutting support staff and extra-curricular activities in schools and stopping the police from investigating hate crime online as examples of how the state could save money. She said: We are now taxing and spending more on government than we have ever done and yet people’s satisfaction with the quality of their day-to-day services is falling. This is not sustainable.
We can’t carry on subsidising so many young people onto university courses which leave them with debts and diminished job prospects.
We must require schools to concentrate on effective whole-class teaching of rigorous subjects rather than allocating tight resources to superfluous support staff and peripheral activities.
We should get the police to focus on neighbourhood crime not waste time and resources worrying about hurt feelings online.
She said cutting the size of the state was the only reliable way to cut taxes. She implicitly attacked Boris Johnson, saying politicians should be honest about the “tough choices” government faces. She said: For too long, politicians have been telling us that we can have it all.
That you can have your cake and eat it.
And I’m here to tell you that t isis’t true.
It never has been. There are always tough choices. In life and in politics.
Of course Johnson is famous for saying (only half-jokingly) his philosophy through life has been to have his cake and eat it.
She said she was opposed to “protectionism, populism and polarisation”. She said: Free markets, limited government, a strong nation state – those are the Conservative principles we need to beat back protectionism, populism and polarisation.
She did not mention the fact Boris Johnson’s premiership championed populism and polarisation, and at times protectionism too.
She criticised what she described as “the Ben & Jerry’s tendency”, which she described as “those who say a business’s main priority is social justice not productivity and profit”. She criticised the next zero target, claiming it was not well planned. She said: [There are] too many policies, like the net zero target, set up with no thought to the effect on industries in the poorer parts of this country.
The consequence is simply to displace emissions to other countries: unilateral economic disarmament.
She said Britain had had a “poor decade for living standards”. She said: We have had a poor decade for living standards.
We have overburdened our economy.
There’s too much unproductive public spending, consuming taxpayers hard earned money.
Too many well-meaning regulations, slowing growth, and clogging up the arteries of the economy.
She said her views where shaped by her upbringing in Nigeria. She said: I grew up in Nigeria and saw first-hand what happens when politicians are in it for themselves, when they use public money as their private piggy banks, when they promise the earth and pollute not just the air but the whole political atmosphere with their failure to serve others.
I saw what socialism means. For millions. Poverty…… and broken dreams.
I came to Britain determined to make my way in a country where hard work and honest endeavour can take you anywhere.
What Badenoch did not explain, though, was how this was relevant to her belief that big government is a mistake. While there may be many reasons for Nigeria’s problems, they are not caused by the country having too much government. Government spending there was 12.1% of GDP in 2020, according to this data. The equivalent figure for the UK was 50.3%.
She continually stressed her commitment to telling the truth. She used the word seven times in her speech, while promising honesty, or to be honest, five times. Andy Street, the Conservative mayor of the West Midlands, is backing Jeremy Hunt for Conservative leader.
As much as I am a pragmatist, there are times when you have to speak up for what you genuinely believe in. The contest to become the next Prime Minister is one of those occasions👇🏻 pic.twitter.com/RMQTvOxLLf
— Andy Street (@andy4wm) July 12, 2022 Street is not an MP, and so he will not get a vote in the contest until the ballot among members. But, as a prominent Tory elected mayor, his endorsement is helpful to Hunt.
David Davis, the former Brexit minister, is backing Penny Mordaunt for leader, he has told Sky News.
UPDATE: Davis said:
We need high integrity, we can’t afford any more scandals after the last two years. She’s a woman of incredible integrity.
But, most of all, she’s got a vision for Britain, she’s a patriot, she knows what she wants to put across, she knows what sort of Conservatism she stands for.
As a result, she’s popular in Scotland, she’s popular in red wall seats, she’s popular with the younger voters and, actually, she’s the person who’s most likely within the party to actually beat Rishi Sunak.
Rishi Sunak’s launch – snap verdictRishi Sunak has always been an exceptionally polished – he thinks carefully about what he is going to say, he plans ahead, he puts a lot of weight on quality presentation – and if this leadership contest gets decided by political professionalism, he will win by a mile. His launch video released last week was pitch perfect. And this launch ran very smoothly too. He opened with a new, high-grade endorsement, and delivered a speech with some substance.
Sunak’s pitch is that he is the most serious and experienced candidate in the field. Or “grown up”, as he put it. By my count he called for a “grown-up conversation” three times, clearly implying that is not what MPs, party members or the public are getting from rival candidates. This is a plausible message that is certain to land well with the commentariat (see 9.47am), and probably with the public at large too.
Rishi Sunak pays tribute to ‘remarkable man’ Boris Johnson in campaign launch – videoThe speech also included two other lines designed to fine-tune his appeal to party members. Sensitive to the charge that he was disloyal to Boris Johnson, Sunak included a lengthy passage paying tribute to him. (See 11.13am.) At one point he claimed that he would refuse to trash Johnson’s reputation even if that cost him the leadership – despite the fact he must be calculating that not antagonising Johnson loyalists is more likely to help his chances in a ballot of party members than hinder them.
Sunak also clarified his stance on tax cuts – saying that he is committed to bringing down the tax burden, just not yet. (See 11.19am.) This is the position he took in his spring statement too – it’s an honest description of what he thinks, not a U-turn – but the emphasis is different from what we heard last week. Again, this feels like a tweak that brings Sunak closer to the centre of gravity in the party.
But it could be that this micro-positioning is too clever by half. Last week Sunak seemed to be running as the fresh start candidate (against Liz Truss, who represents continuity Johnson). But Sunak also seems to be the only candidate in the field who currently supports the government’s current tax policy. This creates the risk that, overall, his position might just be a bit too ambiguous.
And, often to win a leadership contest, a candidate has go out and fight for it. If Sunak really believes that his opponents are peddling nonsense, at some point he is going to have to say so with a bit more grit than he managed today. His reluctance to take questions from the press (he wanted to wrap up after just three questions) did not bode well either.
Shapps pulls out of Tory leadership contest and backs Sunak, saying he has ‘competence and experience’ to be PMGrant Shapps, the transport secretary, has pulled out of the Tory leaderhip candidate and endorsed Rishi Sunak.
Huge thanks to my team for helping to pull together my leadership bid in literally no time! Amongst a field of brilliant candidates I’ve spoken to @RishiSunak who I believe has the competence and experience to lead this country.
— Rt Hon Grant Shapps MP (@grantshapps) July 12, 2022 Sunak tries to wrap up. The journalists protest. Sunak agrees to another question.
Q: Dominic Cummings has been campaigning to make you PM. Are you grateful fo his support, and will you give him a job in No 10.
Sunak says Cummings has had nothing to do with this campaign, and will have nothing to do with any government he leads. He has not communicated with him since Cummings left No 10.
Q: Why have you blocked attempts to raise defence spending?
Sunak says he views the 2% of GDP target as a floor, not a ceiling.
And defence spending is already set to rise, he says.
But he says defence spending should not be determined by arbitrary targets. It should be based on the nature of the threats the country faces, he says.
That’s it. Sunak has now left.
Q: The party has just ousted Boris Johnson on the basis of probity and conduct. You have a police fine too. And there are questions about your family avoiding millions of pounds in tax. And in the party you are seen as a corrosive figure. You are not a clean start, are you?
Sunak says he has support from all wings of the party. That is why he thinks he can bring the country together.
Q: But Labour will be able to use issues like your green card, and your wife’s non-dom status against you.
Sunak says these issues are all out there. He addressed them, and so did his wife. People expect high standards in public office. That is what he will provide.