The race to succeed Boris Johnson as prime minister was already slipping into acrimony on Saturday as Conservative factions briefed against Rishi Sunak, the early favourite, while one senior MP called for “no hope” candidates to drop out. With predictions that up to 15 could put themselves forward as the next Conservative leader, Tory MPs expressed concern at the potential timetable for the race, and the prospect of bitter infighting. On Saturday, the newly appointed chancellor, Nadhim Zahawi, launched his campaign by pledging to lower taxes for individuals, families and business, boost defence spending and continue with education reforms he started in his previous role. Grant Shapps announced his leadership bid by telling the Sunday Times he was ruling out a general election. He said he would instruct his chancellor to cut personal tax for the most vulnerable and give state support to firms with high levels of energy consumption. The foreign secretary, Liz Truss, is expected to launch her bid by pledging that she will advocate “classic Conservative principles”, the Mail on Sunday reported. Sunak, the former chancellor, who entered the race on Friday evening with a slickly edited video campaign message posted on Twitter under the slogan “Ready for Rishi”, is viewed as one of the likely frontrunners. But he has already faced criticism among fellow MPs for indicating he will focus more on fiscal prudence than immediate tax cuts, with his video taking aim at other candidates who may offer “comforting fairytales” rather than economic truths. Jacob Rees-Mogg, a Johnson loyalist, said on Friday evening that he could not back Sunak, whose resignation as chancellor helped precipitate the loss of faith in the prime minister that led to him resigning as Tory leader on Thursday. “We have had a high-tax chancellor and I belong to a low-tax party and I want to see us getting back to being a low-tax party,” Rees-Mogg, the Brexit opportunities minister, told BBC Radio 4’s Any Questions.
Sunak was also hit by the start of what is likely to be a wave of anonymous briefings from Johnson’s Downing Street, where his role in the prime minister’s departure has caused significant anger. One senior No 10 official was quoted in the Financial Times as calling Sunak “a treacherous bastard”, while a Johnson supporter in the cabinet told the paper: “Rishi will get everything he deserves for leading the charge in bringing down the prime minister.” Thus far, the other confirmed candidates are the senior backbench MP Tom Tugendhat, the attorney general, Suella Braverman, and Kemi Badenoch, who was jointly a levelling up and equalities minister until she resigned last week. In an article for the Times announcing her candidacy, Badenoch indicated she would lean strongly into culture war issues, an area that also defined much of her ministerial approach, saying she hoped to tackle “the zero-sum identity politics we see today”.
Steve Baker, another libertarian-right Tory MP who had indicated he might join the race himself, has now backed Braverman. A string of other MPs have indicated they may join the leadership race, among them Nadine Dorries, the culture secretary, and Rehman Chishti who, less than a day after being given his first ministerial role after 12 years in parliament, said he was “actively considering” a run. The defence secretary, Ben Wallace, announced that he will not stand to be the next leader, despite being regarded as a promising outsider in the race. Sir Charles Walker, a former chair of the 1922 Committee of backbench Tory MPs, which will set out the detailed rules for the contest, said he hoped the early stages of the race would not be too brutal. “It is incumbent, obviously, on the candidates, however many there are, that they don’t knock lumps out of each other,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today.
“I hope some of the candidates who know they have no hope of leading our party and becoming prime minister actually decide to drop out for the greater good.” Under party rules the field is reduced to a final two by successive votes among Tory MPs, with the last pair then put to a vote of Conservative members. Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, the treasurer of the 1922 Committee, told Times Radio it was possible that the threshold for nominations needed to enter the race, and then the minimum number of MP votes required to pass each round, could be raised so as to speed up the process.