Liz Truss is about to enter an increasingly bitter Conservative leadership race, as the main contenders moved to the right over Brexit, immigration and fiscal policy in a desperate bid to find sponsors.
Foreign Minister is expected to launch his candidacy with a commitment to reverse Rishi Sunak’s increase in national insurance, despite economists warning that the tax cuts proposed by the former chancellor’s rivals are “mouths” and potentially inflationary.
Sajid Javid, Tom Tugendhat and Jeremy Hunt supported the highly controversial plan to put asylum seekers on outbound flights to Rwanda, and Hunt said he hoped the “relocation” could be extended to more countries.
Despite being considered moderates of the party’s One Nation wing, Mr Tugendhat and Mr Hunt also vowed to continue Boris Johnson’s plan to break Brexit agreements with the EU through the Protocol Protocol bill. Northern Ireland.
In describing Brexit as a revolution that could not be reversed, Mr. Tugendhat vowed to make sure Northern Ireland was “fully and completely part of the UK’s single market”.
Hunt also backed the bill and suggested he regretted supporting the Remain campaign, saying he would be “very tempted” to vote down if he could go back to 2016. He also said he would make the fiery Brexiteer Esther McVey his deputy prime minister if she won the contest.
It came when right-wing Brexitist Suella Braverman tried to outdo her leadership rivals by promising to remove the UK from the “jurisdiction” of the European Court of Human Rights.
The attorney general said it was “unacceptable” that the Strasbourg court had blocked the first attempted flight to Rwanda last month, although it was unclear whether it intended to withdraw the UK from its commitment to the European Convention. of Human Rights, which the court has done. supervises.
Ms. Truss will promise a revocation of Mr. April’s April national insurance increase. Sunak as part of a “low-tax” vote set out in its formal leadership launch Monday.
Paul Johnson, head of the Institute for Tax Studies, said on Twitter that critics of the idea were right to point out that tax cuts do not “magically” increase growth.
But conservative rivals pushed to flank Mr. Sunak, who has warned of the promises of “fairy tales,” with several promises.
Javid claimed his plans for £ 39bn in revenue and corporate tax cuts per year would be fully funded, and said he would ask all departments to save. He pledged to set out the details in a “scoreboard” in the coming days.
In response to Mr Javid and Hunt’s plans to reduce the corporate tax by 15 per cent, Torsten Bell, executive director of the Resolution Foundation think tank, said: “This is crazy. We’re talking £ 30 billion. It will be an expensive leadership election. “
Labor called the increasingly sour contest a “chaotic gateway” as Conservative MPs opposed to Sunak circulated a so-called “dirty dossier” designed to stop building support for their campaign.
The 424-word note shared by conservative WhatsApp groups noted that Sunak had registered his campaign website in December and had “secretly” a U.S. green card. He also questioned his explanation of the tax status of his non-national wife, which was revealed by The Independent in April.
A conservative source told The Independent that the note shared by some MPs was part of a campaign among the right loyal to Mr Johnson to prevent the contest from becoming a “coronation” for Mr Sunak.
Sajid Javid “had no idea” that Rishi Sunak also wanted to resign at the same time
The former chancellor’s campaign continued to gain momentum, however, as former ministers Simon Hart and Helen Whately backed him up and increased the number of approvals above 30, putting him in front of the field.
Grant Shapps appeared to attack the favorite in an interview with The Sunday Times, saying: “I haven’t spent the last turbulent years conspiring … I haven’t been mobilizing a leadership campaign behind their backs.”
And Johnson’s loyal ally, Zac Goldsmith, also attacked Mr. Sunak for his environmental history, though he denied any personal animosity toward the former chancellor.
Lord Goldsmith claimed that Mark Spencer, one of the main sponsors of the Sunak campaign, had lined up for a key role as environment secretary if the former chancellor won the competition. “He’ll be our little Bolsonaro,” he said of Spencer.
Javid, who left the Johnson administration just minutes before Sunak on Tuesday evening, denied plotting with the former chancellor to get rid of the prime minister.
When asked if he had agreed on a resignation plan with Sunak, the former health secretary told the BBC’s Sunday Morning program: “Not at all. That was a decision I made.”
Penny Mordaunt picked up a series of endorsements after launching her campaign Sunday with an unusually bombastic video on Twitter. The Royal Navy reservist video showed footage of soldiers and fighter jets with the patriotic rugby anthem “World in Union”.
The video captured a sequence showing Oscar Pistorius, the South African athlete found guilty of murder, alongside British Paralympic champion Jonnie Peacock. It was later released without the Paralympic sequence after Mr Peacock told him he was “officially asking to be removed from this video”.
In 1922, the Conservative Party Committee of Deputies, which sets the rules for the first stage of the contest, will set the exact timetable after a meeting on Monday. Bob Blackman, who is in the executive, said the nominations would close on Tuesday evening, followed by a process to reduce candidates to two finals on July 21st.