Two more Conservative MPs, James Cleverly and Kit Malthouse, have joined the race for the party leadership, taking the number of hopefuls to 11.
Cleverly, a junior Brexit minister and former deputy chairman, is expected to formally make his announcement on Wednesday, but a website called “Let’s all Win With James Cleverly” has appeared before that event.
Malthouse, a former deputy mayor to Boris Johnson, is a surprise addition to the race, having decided he was the man to deliver the so-called “Malthouse compromise” on Brexit, named after him. The compromise – replacing the Irish backstop with alternative arrangements, or negotiating a longer-term transition to a no-deal exit – has been backed by Conservative leavers and remainers but was rejected as unworkable by Downing Street.
The pair join Johnson, Dominic Raab, Michael Gove, Andrea Leadsom, Esther McVey, Jeremy Hunt, Sajid Javid, Matt Hancock and Rory Stewart, in a crowded field of candidates.
Others who may yet declare include the hardline Eurosceptic Steve Baker, Stephen Barclay, the Brexit secretary, Penny Mordaunt, the defence secretary, the Treasury minister Jesse Norman, and Graham Brady, until recently the chair of the 1922 Committee.
It comes as No 10 confirmed that Theresa May had promised the EU that the UK would not seek to reopen the withdrawal agreement, as a condition of its extension of article 50, until the end of October. The promise, written into the article 50 extension, undermines the pledges of Conservative leadership candidates to secure a renegotiation in the coming months.
Asked about the legal status of the promise, a No 10 spokesman said: “The legal text that was approved at EU council with the prime minister was that we will not be seeking to reopen the withdrawal agreement. That was part of the process under which the extension was approved until 31 October.”
But Hunt, the foreign secretary, who is the leading candidate among MPs, stressed his confidence in being able to achieve a renegotiation, during interviews on Tuesday. He said: “The only solution to the extremely difficult situation we are in, and I don’t want to pretend there is an easy way through this, is to change the withdrawal agreement.”
He added: “We need to have a new negotiating team, with someone from the Democratic Unionist party, the [Tory hardline Brexit] European Research Group, someone from Scotland and Wales so that the union side of these issues is properly thought through.”
He also wrote a Telegraph article saying that a no-deal Brexit would be “political suicide”, as he did not believe parliament would allow the UK to leave with no deal on 31 October and would force an early election.
Johnson, the frontrunner, has said he would seek to renegotiate Theresa May’s deal and leave at the end of October whether or not he has managed to achieve that. But he has not been specific about whether this would involve opening the withdrawal agreement.
Raab, who launched a campaign video emphasising his commitment to “fairness”, has said he would like to agree a “legally binding exchange of letters to give the UK a clear exit from the so-called backstop”. However, it is not clear whether this would involve reopening the text of the withdrawal agreement.
Other candidates, including Hunt and Gove, have also said they want to renegotiate with the EU to make the withdrawal agreement more acceptable to Eurosceptics.
One person close to a Brexiter candidate also claimed any idea that the withdrawal agreement was closed forever was simply not credible. He said the UK’s promise not to reopen the withdrawal agreement should not be over-interpreted as the European council could change the terms and conditions if it wanted to.
With May having promised to resign as Tory leader on 7 June, her official spokesman acknowledged on Tuesday that the withdrawal bill delivering her deal was no longer going to be brought forward. The spokesman said: “We now have to reflect on the fact that we are in a different position.”
He indicated that it was not likely that even uncontroversial elements of the bill – such as guaranteeing EU citizens’ rights – would be brought forward for a vote in the Commons, as it would be for a new prime minister to find a way forward.
