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Conservative leadership rift opens as Brexit recriminations begin Conservative leadership rift opens as Brexit recriminations begin
(about 2 hours later)
Conservative divisions over who should succeed David Cameron have burst into the open with the foreign secretary warning Boris Johnson and other Brexit supporters they need to tell voters how they plan to reconcile “mutually incompatible” promises made during the referendum campaign. Boris Johnson and Theresa May, the main contenders to succeed David Cameron as prime minister, are set to launch their formal leadership bids this week amid a slightly chaotic and febrile atmosphere inside the Tory party, with renewed splits developing between leave and remain supporters.
With Johnson and his co-figurehead of the official leave campaign, Michael Gove, still absent from public view as tensions over who should be the party leader in the post-Brexit era began to show, Philip Hammond said Johnson had a potentially difficult task ahead. Johnson stayed silent on how he might plot a path forward for a post-Brexit UK, surfacing only to play in a charity cricket match before hunkering down with backbench Tory MP allies at his Oxfordshire country home, ahead of an imminent launch of his succession attempt.
Conservative MPs told the Guardian that Theresa May has been canvassing support among colleagues and is likely to announce her leadership bid later this week in a speech. The home secretary has been a potential contender for a long time, and is keen to be viewed as not merely a stop-Boris candidate.
While Labour is engulfed in the attempt by much of the shadow cabinet to oust Jeremy Corbyn, the Conservative differences are thus far lower key but threaten to become equally bitter. Both the Johnson and May camps immediately hit potential opposition as various Conservatives did the rounds of the Sunday political talk shows.
For Johnson, a likely problem will be bitterness from some remain supporters. Philip Hammond, the foreign secretary, was among the first to signal his dissatisfaction by warning Johnson that he and other Brexit backers need to tell voters how they plan to reconcile “mutually incompatible” promises made during the referendum campaign over restricted immigration and continued free trade.
“The key leave campaigners made contradictory promises to the British people,” he told ITV’s Peston on Sunday. “I’m sorry to say that but they did.” He added: “Boris is one of those.”“The key leave campaigners made contradictory promises to the British people,” he told ITV’s Peston on Sunday. “I’m sorry to say that but they did.” He added: “Boris is one of those.”
Hammond continued: “Now they will have to resolve that by explaining how they will balance the tradeoffs … between the different things they promised which are mutually incompatible. That will be hugely disappointing to a lot of people in this country who voted leave. How that tradeoff is made is the key question now for the future prosperity of this country”. Hammond continued: “Now they will have to resolve that by explaining how they will balance the tradeoffs… between the different things they promised which are mutually incompatible. That will be hugely disappointing to a lot of people in this country who voted leave. How that tradeoff is made is the key question now for the future prosperity of this country”.
His comments came as Iain Duncan Smith, a prominent Brexit supporter, appeared to dismiss one of the most high-profile claims made by the leave campaign, that all the UK contribution to the EU could now instead go to the NHS. This had never been a firm pledge, the former pensions secretary said. Reports at the weekend suggested Michael Gove, Johnson’s co-figurehead in the official leave campaign who has also laid low since Friday, had called the former London mayor to formally pledge support to his leadership bid.
“It is not a promise broken. I never said that through the course of the election,” Duncan Smith said in an interview on the BBC’s Andrew Marr’s programme. “What I said was we will be able to spend the lion’s share of that money,” he said. Any delay in officially launching a Johnson leadership bid could be in part because the former London mayor did not anticipate events moving so fast. One MP campaigning for Britain to leave the EU said that many on his side had not expected the outcome, insisting: “Boris wanted to succeed David Cameron, not topple him”.
Duncan Smith insisted that the next Conservative leader must come from the pro-leave camp, a condition that, if met, would exclude Theresa May, seen as the closest rival to Johnson. May’s difficulty is that she would face the ire of some Brexiters in the party for her choice to side with the remain side, however low-key her role. Iain Duncan Smith, a prominent leave supporter, told BBC’s Andrew Marr show that the new Tory leader must be from his wing of the party.
“Whoever takes up that job … it would be very, very difficult for the public who have voted for leaving the European Union to find that they then had a prime minister who actually was opposed to leaving the European Union,” he said. He said: “Whoever takes up that job... it would be very, very difficult for the public who have voted for leaving the European Union to find that they then had a prime minister who actually was opposed to leaving the European Union.”
With a series of leadership hopefuls set to declare their candidacy in the coming days, one Tory MP has called for the party to delay the process of replacing Cameron. Phillip Lee, the pro-remain MP for Bracknell, said Cameron’s stated timetable of having a new leader in place for the party’s annual conference in October was too rushed. May would nonetheless be a serious rival, preventing any Johnson coronation. According to a poll by the Mail on Sunday newspaper, while Johnson remains the top pick for Conservative supporters when presented with a long list of candidates, if the choice is between just him and May, she edges it by 53% to 47%.
Lee told the Guardian he was writing to Graham Brady, chair of the party’s backbench 1922 Committee, to urge that no shortlist be made before candidates had a chance to present themselves to the conference, with a new incumbent in place in November instead. On Sunday Justine Greening, the international development secretary, suggested the party should avoid a contest at all and anoint a Johnson/May joint ticket, in either order.
Lee insisted this was not intended to halt a Johnson coronation, and that he was taking no view on who to support. “I don’t, quote, see what the rush is,” he said. “I think we should take some time over this – it is about the future direction of the country. As a practising doctor I know that people don’t make good decisions at a time of shock.” “A leadership contest now is not in the interests of our country,” Greening wrote on the Conservative Home website. “It will mean our party focuses inward – at the very time our country most needs us to focus outward.”
Johnson remains the firm favourite for the party’s leadership that fell vacant after the prime minister’s resignation on Friday morning. He has yet to speak publicly following a brief address on Friday, and spent Saturday playing in a charity cricket match at Earl Spencer’s Altorp estate. This would seem an unpopular choice with others, however, with a series of Tory MPs looking set to enter the fray, including Liam Fox and Andrea Leadsom. The pensions secretary, Stephen Crabb, set out his stall in the Sunday Telegraph, writing about disenchantment in poorer areas with “a political class in Westminster which now looks the same, dresses the same way, and speaks the same strange language”. The education secretary, Nicky Morgan, meanwhile took to the Sunday Times to set out an “optimistic and positive” one-nation vision.
Gove is thought to be ready to work alongside him, while other candidates are taking soundings about whether they will stand. Some Tory MPs are talking up May, the home secretary, while George Osborne is considering his next steps, although his position is weakened after the country voted to leave the European Union. There is also some support for more voices to be heard by delaying the selection of a two-strong shortlist to be voted on by party members until after the Conservative annual conference in October. When Cameron announced he was stepping down on Friday, he said a new leader should be in place by the conference.
The Conservative grandee Lord Heseltine has said Johnson, Gove and the Ukip leader, Nigel Farage, must lead talks on the EU exit, so they can be held accountable for the consequences. However, Fox suggested this process could be extended. Another Tory MP, Phillip Lee, told the Guardian he was writing to Graham Brady, chair of the backbench 1922 Committee, to urge that no shortlist be made before candidates had a chance to present themselves to the conference, with a new incumbent in place in November instead.
“Any other negotiating team will produce claims that those three would have achieved a better result and during the negotiations they will excuse any deterioration in Britain’s position as a failure of the negotiators,” the strongly pro-EU Heseltine told the Press Association. “They must be in charge and seen to be in charge.” “I don’t quite see what the rush is,” he said. “I think we should take some time over this – it is about the future direction of the country. As a practising doctor I know that people don’t make good decisions at a time of shock.”
Hammond, meanwhile, held out the possibility of a new prime minister opting for the UK to remain within the EU’s free trade area, even if that meant allowing uncontrolled flows of people from the bloc.
Another of the Sunday morning interviewees, the business secretary, Sajid Javid, declined to speculate on who might succeed Cameron. “There is lots of talent in the party and there will be, I’m sure, lots to choose from,” Javid told the BBC’s Andrew Marr show.
May is expected to declare her intention to stand for leader this week. Liam Fox, the Eurosceptic former defence minister, said on Sunday he had not yet made up his mind whether to stand. George Freeman, the life sciences minister, has already said he will. A number of other Tory MPs expected to stand wrote comment pieces for Sunday newspapers, including the pensions secretary, Stephen Crabb, in the Sunday Telegraph, who talked of working-class disenchantment with “a political class in Westminster which now looks the same, dresses the same way, and speaks the same strange language.
The education secretary, Nicky Morgan, called in the Sunday Times for an “optimistic and positive” one-nation visions.
The pro-Brexit Andrea Leadsom is also being linked with leadership bids, as well as possibly Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary.