Candidates for rival Tory leadership have directed fire at Penny Mordaunt as she continues to gain momentum in an increasingly sour career.
Rishi Sunak, the former chancellor, remains the favorite, after getting 13 more votes in the second round vote on Thursday than the day before, and Mordaunt walked away from Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, who he added fewer deputies to it. despite its high-profile release earlier in the day.
Suella Braverman, the attorney general, was removed from the race after receiving 27 votes in the second round, and immediately attacked Mordaunt on the issue of trans rights and then announced that she would support Truss’s bid, along with the Deputy Chief Steve Baker. , who led his campaign.
He criticized Mordaunt’s handling of legislation granting maternity leave to ministers last year, which Braverman had been the first to accept.
Suella Braverman criticizes Penny Mordaunt for “not defending women” – video
“Penny Mordaunt, as the bill minister, the minister responsible for passing the bill, opposed and resisted the inclusion of the word woman and the inclusion of the word mother,” Braverman said. . “I was very disappointed with the way it was managed and the responsible minister, I’m afraid, didn’t defend women.”
Rival camps were sharing a video of Mordaunt talking about legislation in the Commons at the time, in which he says, “Let me say by proposing, from this box office, that trans men are men, trans women are women”. He adds that “great care” has been taken in drafting amendments to reflect this.
Since launching his campaign, Mordaunt has tried to downplay the idea that he is too “awake” for the tastes of Conservative members.
Meanwhile, supporters of Truss, including former Brexit negotiator David Frost, and Treasury Secretary-General Simon Clarke, publicly raised questions about Mordaunt’s performance as minister.
Lord Frost, referring to Mordaunt when he was effectively his deputy during the Brexit talks, told TalkTV: “I’m sorry to say: he didn’t master the details needed in last year’s negotiations. I always sent harsh messages to the EU when necessary, and I’m afraid it wasn’t fully responsible and not always visible. Sometimes I didn’t even know where it was. “
Clarke, who chose to support Truss in preference to his boss, Sunak, said: “I think it is indicating where the current members of the government are giving their support. This is reflected in a number of very high ministerial decisions. on whom to support in this race: they do not support Mrs. Mordaunt “.
Another Truss supporter, former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith, suggested the race “would be a bit personal,” adding, “I really don’t know what Penny has done in the last two and a half years.” know the name of the job you have been in “.
Mordaunt supporters said the ferocity of the attacks on her underscored the way she had shaken her career. “We are taking over two establishments: the economic establishment and the Boris establishment,” one MP said.
At the launch of his campaign, Truss tried to run as a candidate for change, despite the support of super-loyalists Boris Johnson, Nadine Dorries and Jacob Rees-Mogg.
“I can lead, I can make tough decisions and I can get things done,” Truss said at a carefully choreographed event in Westminster, which was attended by his MP and cabinet sponsors. “I’m ready to be prime minister from day one.”
Sunak got 101 votes in the second deputy vote, followed by Mordaunt, with 83, and Truss with 64.
Former Equality Minister Kemi Badenoch and Tom Tugendhat also made it past the final round, although the latter lost five followers. Tugendhat, the chairman of the select foreign affairs committee, said he will continue his campaign and take part in televised debates from Friday.
At a press conference earlier in the day, Tugendhat acknowledged that he was being courted so intensely by other camps in the hope that he would double his campaign and join them in feeling “like a dance queen.”
“I’m still in this fight,” he said. “What members of parliament need to know and what members of the Conservative Party need to know is that whoever they choose as a leader in this process is someone who can stand up for these ideas and values in the upcoming 2024 elections. And then, I hope, maybe 2029 as well. “
He said the race had been “a hellish job interview”, but in a one-hour question and answer session with reporters, the MP laid out plans for green growth, a commitment to look at the rate of reduction of the universal credit to alleviate the cost of living. crisis, and a boost to defense spending and the number of the army.
The chairman of the select foreign affairs committee told LBC Radio that he did not think the privatization of Channel 4 was a good idea, and said he would not remove the BBC license fee.
Some lawmakers expect Tugendhat to step down before the third vote on Monday afternoon, unless he believes his performance in Friday and Sunday’s televised debates has somehow catapulted him into controversy.
Next week there will be final voting to reduce the election to two candidates. Then the members of the Conservative party will decide the winner.
Braverman supporters were already being pressured by other camps. A deputy who backed the attorney general suggested he would move, “especially Liz,” which could help the Secretary of State make ground for Mordaunt.
Braverman had put the withdrawal of the European Convention on Human Rights at the center of his presentation and said he would ask for guarantees from other candidates who would do so. In statements after being removed from the race, he said: “I am absolutely blown away by the support I received from many members of parliament, if not in their votes, definitely in their hearts.”
Braverman sole removed from Conservative leadership career – video
The YouGov poll on Conservative members released on Wednesday suggested that Mordaunt could beat Sunak in a face-to-face vote or that Truss could win if he faced him. But Sunak supporters insisted he would.
Mark Harper, the former Sunak-backed leader, said the former chancellor was shaping the debate following a call to end “fairy tales” about the economy. “I am just happy I didn’t [committed to tax cuts], “He said.” Some people also promise massive increases in public spending. You have to say, ‘How will you pay for it?’ ”
Harper said there had been no dirty tricks from Sunak’s campaign or votes lent to other candidates. He said former Treasury Secretary Mel Stride was leading the campaign milking operation instead of Gavin Williamson, the former secretary of education, who has earned a reputation as a “dark arts” in the leadership campaigns.