Conservative MPs looking for a new party leader need to allow Rishi Sunak to “get on with the job”, Grant Shapps has said.
Amid speculation that Sunak could announce an election next week in order to stave off potential challengers for the top job, the defence secretary said now was not “the time or place” to try to put another Conservative leader in place. The party is on its fifth leader since 2015.
Shapps said MPs needed to give Sunak “space”. “Let him get on with the job. He’s doing a great job, he’s doing it under difficult circumstances,” Shapps said in an interview with the Times. “There was never an instruction book to get these difficult things [done] and actually steer us through a difficult course.”
His intervention came after James Cleverly, the home secretary, advised Conservative MPs on Thursday not to “feed the psychodrama” by submitting no-confidence letters in Sunak. “If you’re going to jump out of an aeroplane, please make sure you’ve got a parachute before you leave the aeroplane,” he said.
Ahead of local and mayoral elections on Thursday, which are forecast to be a disaster for the Conservatives, Sunak has spent this week seeking to bolster his leadership with a pledge to spend 2.5% on defence by 2030 and finally passing his Rwanda deportation plan into law. The Council of Europe’s human rights commissioner has condemned the legislation.
A number of figures within the party appear to be vying for the leadership, with Tory insiders saying Penny Mordaunt, the Commons leader, is among those “on manoeuvres”. Mordaunt has spoken at dozens of Tory grassroots associations in the past few months in what has been perceived to be part of her preparations for a potential leadership campaign.
Conservative MPs have said they believe Mordaunt is at risk of losing her Portsmouth North seat, despite her 15,780 majority, and so may be hoping for a leadership race before the general election. Although she has been nicknamed “Poison Pen” by some due to being perceived as plotting for Sunak’s job, her allies deny she is preparing for a campaign.
Kemi Badenoch, who is considered the frontrunner due to to her popularity with the party’s grassroots membership, was seen as boosting her libertarian credentials when she announced that she would not back Sunak’s smoking ban this month.
And despite Shapps’s statements imploring MPs to support Sunak, he is considered by some to be among those aiming for the top job. Shapps has been accused by one former minister of being “particularly blatant” in his ambitions, inviting Tory MPs to briefings on defence issues and following up with them directly if he did not hear back. “There’s deniability in the cover,” they added.
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Sunak has insisted he intends to call a general election in the second half of the year, with many analysts considering October or November to be the preferred period.
A BMG survey for the i paper suggested that those who voted Conservative in 2019, but have since abandoned the party, would be more likely to vote Tory under a different leader. However, among the wider electorate, only Boris Johnson appeared to poll marginally better, with 31% to Sunak’s 30%.