James Cleverly: Tories can’t take for granted they’ll always be Labour’s main rival
The Tories cannot take for granted that they will always be Labour’s main rival, James Cleverly has warned, as he said the party does not exist to be “small and ideologically pure”.
The former home secretary said that the Conservative Party had to regain voters from Reform UK, the Liberal Democrats and Labour as he warned against chasing just one group.
Mr Cleverly has announced that he will stand to become the next Tory party leader, alongside Tom Tugendhat, Robert Jenrick and Mel Stride.
He has sought to pitch himself as a candidate of the centre ground, as he called the Conservatives “a party driven by duty”.
‘We exist to govern’
In his first interview since announcing his candidacy, he told The Times: “If we get it wrong and we start losing seats there is a risk that we are no longer the largest party in opposition. And so we have got to take this seriously.”
He added: “If you chase one group, any of those groups, to the exclusion of the others, then all you’re doing is moving rather than growing. We need to grow back again.
“Being small and ideologically pure is not what we exist to do. We exist to govern.”
The Conservatives won 121 seats on July 4, with the Liberal Democrats coming third with 72.
In terms of seats, the Tories had their worst result in history, while the Lib Dems became the largest third party in over a century.
There was also a surge in support for Nigel Farage’s Reform party, which secured 14 per cent of the national vote share, if only winning five seats.
Mr Cleverly urged that the Tories unite once again, as he declared: “We exist not as the political wing of a pressure group. We’re not a think tank. We’re not a cult. We are a party that exists to provide good government to the British people.”
Among the key policy issues that are thought to come up during the leadership campaign are the UK’s membership of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and immigration.
The shadow home secretary’s position is that it is unnecessary to leave the convention, as it is possible to “stand up to the ECHR”.
It will pit him against the views of Mr Jenrick and Mr Tugendhat, who have both expressed a preparedness to leave it to give Britain more flexibility on tackling migration.
Mr Cleverly has held various positions in the party and in government, including as foreign secretary and briefly as education secretary under Liz Truss. He was also a Brexit minister.