Politics

Tory leadership hopefuls: where they stand on Brexit


The runners and riders of the Tory leadership race have been setting out their positions on Brexit as they officially launched their campaigns this week.

The ten Conservative MPs hoping to be leader of their party – and prime minister – cover the whole Brexit spectrum, from wanting to negotiate a new deal with the European Union to crashing out of the bloc without an agreement.

The issue has become central to the contest. Here is what the candidates have said.

Boris Johnson

Boris Johnson

The former foreign secretary finally broke his silence on Wednesday by promising to leave the EU no matter what by 31 October.

The runaway frontrunner to succeed Theresa May said he was “not aiming for a no-deal outcome” and believed a new government “with a new mandate, a new optimism, a new determination” could leave the EU with an amended deal. However, in a nod to the Brexit-supporting Tory membership and those who believe he is the only candidate capable of combating Nigel Farage’s insurgent Brexit Party, Johnson said he would prepare “vigorously and seriously” to leave the EU without an agreement, warning the survival of the Conservative Party depended on it.

The former mayor of London has surprised many in Westminster with the professionalism of his campaign, but also how he has managed to pick up a host of endorsements from both Leavers and Remainers.

Speaking through the logic of this unlikely alliance, an unnamed minister told The Spectator editor Fraser Nelson, writing in The Daily Telegraph: “Our problem is now existential… a lot of people who hate Boris now see him as their only hope of dealing with [Nigel] Farage and keeping their seat.”

Johnson and his supporters will have been boosted by the latest polling which shows he is the only Tory candidate capable of winning back disgruntled voters who have defected to the Brexit Party and securing a majority in the event of an early general election.

However, The Times’ Rachel Sylvester warns: “This is a man who wears his beliefs so lightly that he wrote two articles ahead of the EU referendum, one supporting Leave and the other Remain. There is every reason to assume he will pivot away from the hard Brexit position if it suits him politically.”

Indeed, Business Insider reports that moderate Conservative MPs are considering embracing Johnson as their next leader precisely because they believe he is politically malleable.

Jeremy Hunt
Jeremy Hunt Culture Secretary

Seeking to position himself as the “anyone-but-Boris candidate”, the foreign secretary used his campaign launch to say he would pursue a no-deal Brexit if it was the only way to leave the EU, although it is not his preferred option.

Hunt, who initially backed Remain, wrote in the Daily Telegraph that it was clear from last month’s EU election results that the Tories would be “annihilated” if they fought a general election before Brexit is done. “Attacked by The Brexit Party on the right and the Liberal Democrats on the left, we will face extinction”, he said.

It means Hunt has “stepped away from the ongoing Brexit arms race which has seen rivals Johnson, Raab and Esther McVey all commit to pulling Britain out of the EU on October 31, come what may”, says Politico’s Jack Blanchard.

Instead he has pledged to use his good relationship with EU leaders to return to Brussels with a new-look negotiating team to secure an improved withdrawal agreement. “The fundamental question is – is there a deal to be done? I think there is,” Hunt told ITV’s Robert Peston.

Andrea Leadsom
Andrea Leadsom

Leadsom helped seal May’s fate when she resigned as House of Commons leader last month in protest against the withdrawal bill.

She claimed that the prime minister’s Brexit plan – which included a promise to let Parliament vote on whether to hold a new EU membership referendum – did not “deliver on the referendum result” of 2016.

Since then she has seen her odds slashed – and now looks the most likely threat to Johnson from the hard-Brexit wing of the party.

She has called for the UK to leave the EU on 31 October as part of a “managed no-deal”. This would include “significantly ramping up preparations” for leaving while working up “alternative arrangements” for the Irish border and a temporary free trade agreement with the EU, she said.

Michael Gove

Michael Gove, Dog

One of the main architects of Vote Leave’s shock victory, Gove had been favourite to join Johnson on the final ballot sent out to members until revelations of historical cocaine use surfaced.

A supporter of May’s doomed Withdrawal Agreement, Gove has said he would consider a “short delay” to Brexit if a better deal is within reach by 31 October. To achieve this he would go back to Brussels and negotiate changes to the Irish backstop. He would then pursue a Canada-style free trade agreement and offer every EU national currently residing in the UK British citizenship.

The BBC has described the environment secretary as “someone who could hold the Conservative Party together, and might be a candidate Remainers could stomach because he’s hinted he could be open to a softer form of Brexit”.

But it’s for exactly this reason that the Tory’s hardline Brexiteers believe him an unacceptable choice.

Rory Stewart

The big surprise in this year’s Tory leadership race, the new international development secretary has won plaudits from moderate MPs and commentators for his straight-talking assessment of the other candidates’ Brexit pronouncements.

Stewart has also been positioning himself as an anti-Boris candidate after announcing he wouldn’t serve in a BoJo Cabinet and dismissing his rival as “Pinocchio” on Twitter.

He has warned a no-deal Brexit would be “catastrophic”, “undeliverable” and “unnecessary” and instead is advocating citizens’ assemblies for Brexit to thrash out a compromise.

Sajid Javid
Sajid Javid

A reluctant Remainer in the 2016 referendum campaign – “partly out of loyalty and partly over economic fears”, says Bloomberg – Javid has since moved firmly into the pro-Brexit camp, opposing a customs union with the EU.

In a similar vein to Hunt’s pitch, the home secretary said that the results of the European election were “all too clear” about the need to “get on, deliver Brexit”.

He has said he will focus on the Withdrawal Agreement, with changes to the backstop, talking about “a new digitized” Irish border, which could be “done in a couple of years” and that would not involve any infrastructure on the border.

He says he would make a “grand gesture” to the Irish government by paying for it.

Dominic Raab

Dominic Raab

Once seen as the biggest threat to a Johnson coronation, the former Brexit secretary has faded badly in the initial formal stages of the leadership race.

“The contest will be a Leaver vs. Remain primary, with Boris and Dom fighting to be the party’s Brexit candidate,” a Conservative Eurosceptic told the FT back in March. “Dom is a man of principle and he isn’t going to flip-flop.”

Yet he has been criticised for distancing himself from the very Withdrawal Agreement he helped negotiated.

He now says leaving on World Trade Organisation (WTO) terms “is far better than leaving with a fatally flawed deal”, but has sparked widespread condemnation by refusing to rule out suspending Parliament – known as proroguing – to prevent MPs from blocking the UK crashing out of the EU without a deal by default on 31 October.

“In effect, any PM who pushed for no-deal would see their government collapse in the autumn and risk a general election where there would be a significant chance that Labour would end up in government before the end of the year,” John Curtice, an election expert and professor of politics at Strathclyde University, said during a debate on Brexit by academics in London last month.

Matt Hancock
Matt Hancock

The health secretary, who in April said he still disagreed with the referendum result but would respect it because it’s what the country voted for, has sought to position himself as the moderating voice of the next generation of Tories.

Writing in the Daily Mail, Hancock, played up his Remainer credentials by saying the Conservatives must be as focused on winning back votes from the Lib Dems as they are from the Brexit Party.

“This strikes at the heart of our ability to win general elections at all. A Lib Dem revival threatens dozens of Conservative seats in England, opening up a pathway to power for Jeremy Corbyn,” he concludes.

To this end he has ruled out leaving without a deal – “so it’s between leaving with a deal and not leaving at all”, says the BBC.

Hancock has set out a “Brexit delivery plan”, which involves setting up an Irish Border Council to come up with a plan for avoiding a hard border in Ireland. He has previously told the Financial Times that he would seek new ways to avoid a hard border in Ireland, perhaps including a time-limit – something the EU has repeatedly ruled out.

Esther McVey
Work and Pensions Secretary Esther McVey leaves Downing Street

McVey has “the hardest Brexit position of the lot, after holding out against Theresa May’s deal throughout the various votes”, says The Guardian.

She has sought to distance herself from other hard-Brexiteer candidates such as Raab and Leadsom by promising to take the UK out of the EU without a deal regardless of what happened over the next few months.

The former work and pensions secretary says Britain needs a “clean break” from the EU on World Trade Organization (WTO) terms. However, in a sign even she could back away from the nuclear option of no deal she said if EU leaders were faced with the UK crashing out it could be “prepared to move away from their fixed position, listen, remove the backstop, and negotiate a free-trade deal”.

Mark Harper

Harper, a relatively unknown MP who last served in the Cabinet under David Cameron, is pitching himself as the “underdog” candidate who offers “fresh thinking”.

The former chief whip told The Daily Telegraph that a number of his rivals “have tried to position themselves as fresh faces, but I’m afraid they’ve sat around the cabinet table sharing the responsibility with the prime minister”.

On Brexit, he “seems to be positioning himself as a pragmatic hardliner”, insisting that would prefer a deal but would be prepared to leave without one, says Politics.co.uk’s Ian Dunt.

“My view is that if you are going to try and get a deal with the European Union and get it through Parliament, that is not going to be possible by October 31, which means we will need an extension,” Harper told the Telegraph.

Sam Gyimah

The former universities minister is the only contender currently pushing for a People’s Vote. In fact, he proposes two votes, one on Leave versus Remain and then another on deal versus no-deal.

“We face a very stark and unwelcome choice,” Gyimah told Sky News as he announced his candidacy. “It is either no deal or revoke via a second referendum, possibly. But what most of the candidates are offering is no deal and a fudge on Theresa May’s deal, which has been heavily defeated.”

He claimed that he was entering the race because the nationwide “broad sweep of opinion” on how the UK should move forward with Brexit was not being reflected in the Tory leadership contest.

“Parliament is deadlocked, we all know that, we want to move forward and we want to be able to bring the country together,” Gyimah added. “And that is why I think a final say on the Brexit deal is the way to achieve that.”

A two-stage referendum “is quite a rare proposition in Remain circles, where the debate over whether or not to include no-deal on the ballot paper has influential advocates on both sides”, says Politics.co.uk’s Dunt. Gyimah’s solution “manages to partially sidestep that division, but critics worry that it would lead to a no-deal outcome by constantly pitting vague, and therefore more attractive, options next to concrete realities”, Dunt adds.





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