Brexiteer former minister Esther McVey announces Conservative leadership bid

Esther McVey has announced she will stand for the Conservative leadership when Theresa May steps down.

The former work and pensions secretary has become the third Tory to openly declare her leadership ambitions after Andrea Leadsom and Rory Stewart threw their hats into the ring.

Ms McVey, who quit Cabinet in November over Mrs May’s Brexit deal, said the Conservative Party needs a leader who “believes in Brexit” and had “belief in the opportunities” it could bring.

Asked whether she will stand in the battle to replace Mrs May, Ms McVey told TalkRadio: “I have always said quite clearly if I got enough support from my colleagues, yes I would.

“Now people have come forward and I have got that support, so I will be going forward.”

Ms McVey said that Mrs May’s departure should be handled in a “dignified and graceful” way.

The news from the Leave-backing MP came as Justice Secretary David Gauke called for the party to steer away from populism, in what was seen as a bid to prevent a lurch to the right after Mrs May’s departure.

Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd warned “a no-deal prime minister would not be able to command a majority in the House of Commons, telling BBC2’s Newsnight: “Parliament is a hung Parliament at the moment.

“We know that it is an incredibly difficult group of MPs to influence and to control and to get a majority at the moment. So whoever makes the pitch is going to have to convince everybody that they can hold that majority together.” 

Ms Rudd, who backed Remain in 2016, declined to say whether she would stand for leader and – in an apparent swipe at Jeremy Hunt and Dominic Raab – was critical of those who have “paraded” their spouses in the media in recent days.

“This shouldn’t be some Game of Thrones push for the Iron Throne,” Ms Rudd told Newsnight. “We’ve all got important jobs to do. Let’s deliver on those.”

As rivals limber up for the succession battle, Mr Gauke warned that populist policies would leave Britain poorer and more divided and put the Union at risk.

Appealing to the party to stand by the banner of One Nation Conservatism, the Justice Secretary used a speech to the Onward thinktank to call for civil, open-minded and forward-looking politics.

Although he is not often mentioned in lists of potential successors to Mrs May, Mr Gauke’s comments will be seen as an intervention in the leadership contest to come after the Prime Minister steps down, as she has said she will once the first phase of Brexit is complete.

One of the Cabinet’s most prominent opponents of a no-deal Brexit, Mr Gauke’s speech is likely to be interpreted as a caution to the party not to choose a leader from among advocates of the hardest forms of EU withdrawal, like Boris Johnson or Dominic Raab.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme ahead of his speech, he urged Tory MPs to back Mrs May, saying that removing her as PM would not change the parliamentary arithmetic on Brexit.

“I think it would be a mistake to have a change of leadership at this point,” said Mr Gauke.

When the Conservatives choose their next leader, the focus should be on “what is the role of the UK in a post-Brexit world and who is the best candidate to defeat Jeremy Corbyn”, he added.

In his speech, Mr Gauke said the arguments of some Brexiteers has been “characterised by wishful thinking” which has “not survived the collision with reality”.

Voters’ anger over the failure to deliver Brexit on time has been fuelled by some Leave supporters’ over-simplification of the difficulties involved, he said.

And he argued that the Government must put the economy at the heart of its Brexit strategy, discouraging a “culture war” over relations with Europe and ensuring that the UK maintains “strong trading relationships with our biggest trading partner”.

In a challenge to populists’ claim to be the heirs of the most successful Tory leader of modern times, he insisted that Margaret Thatcher led her party and her country by confronting populism, not embracing it.

Mr Gauke warned that the growth of populism has driven a coarsening of political debate, with language becoming more extreme and civility dismissed as weakness.

But he said that on the key political arguments, populists are “just plain wrong”.

Populist politics would “make us a poorer and a more divided nation” and fail to satisfy voters who feel disillusioned by the current system, he said.

It involves an attack on the very institutions which underpin the UK’s political stability and threatens to undermine the United Kingdom itself by manifesting itself in the guise of English nationalism, warned Mr Gauke.

“Conservatism should be broad, not narrow; open, not closed; forward-looking, not yearning for a mythical past,” he said.

“It should be based on an appeal to the common-sense, pragmatic instincts of the majority. We should seek to unite, not divide. One Nation Conservatism.

“Pragmatic, practical, reasonable but determined. That is the character of the British people. That is the character of Conservatism at its best.”

Additional reporting by Press Association.