Two senior Tories have thrown their weight behind Tom Tugendhat to be the new Conservative party leader.
Damian Green and Steve Baker lost their seats in the election earlier this month but are influential figures in the party. They have endorsed Tugendhat, who is the shadow security minister, in a joint article for the Telegraph.
Baker is an ardent Brexiter and the former leader of the European Research Group, while Green was chair of the One Nation group of Tory moderates.
They wrote: “We ought to choose to transcend old divisions of leave versus remain, One Nation versus right. We cannot spend the next five years in recriminations over the past 10. We cannot spend our time in opposition seeking to expel one wing of the party or another.”
They urged MPs not to turn to the “hard right” in response to the drubbing the Conservative party received at the general election on 4 July.
“Some colleagues’ tone often meant that we were cast as a ‘hard-right’ party or the ‘nasty’ party, leading voters to turn against us or to whichever party in their area was most likely to rid them of us,” they wrote.
“That won’t do. Our leader must be someone who can communicate robust ideas with resolve and humility so that the nation is carried, not divided. For these reasons – not despite but because we are from different wings of the Conservative party – we both see Tom Tugendhat as the individual to deliver the leadership we need.”
Tugendhat is believed to be preparing a leadership bid, as are the shadow communities secretary, Kemi Badenoch, the shadow home secretary, James Cleverly, and former ministers Suella Braverman, Robert Jenrick and Priti Patel.
Braverman has suggested the Conservatives should welcome Nigel Farage into the party and said his Reform party “presents an existential threat to us electorally”.
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The 1922 Committee of backbenchers will set the rules and timeline for the race to succeed Rishi Sunak. However, it remains unclear when that will happen after senior Tories failed to reach agreement about a timetable for the contest, amid a split between key party figures.
It means no decision will be made until at least next week, when the executive of the 1922 Committee meets again.
In a Conservative Home survey of 995 party members last week, Tugendhat and Jenrick polled at 13% – in second place but ahead of Braverman (10%) and Cleverly (9%). Badenoch polled first at 26%, with Patel in sixth on 3%.
