Tory leadership race could be cut short to allow Rishi Sunak’s successor to tackle Labour’s budget _ Hieuuk
The Tory leadership contest is set to be cut short to allow Rishi Sunak‘s successor to take on Rachel Reeves at next month’s Budget.
Senior Conservatives are in talks about bringing forward the announcement of the party’s new leader by a week from its current date of November 2.
This would allow the leader to take charge in time to respond to Ms Reeves’s ‘parliament-defining’ Budget on October 30 – and help prevent the climax of the contest being buried by the avalanche of news surrounding the US presidential election on November 5.
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But it would cut short the time for the final two candidates to appeal to party members.
The plan was mooted in July when the date of the Budget was fixed. At that point, one of the six candidates objected to the idea of being thrust immediately into responding to the Budget, which is regarded as one of the toughest jobs an opposition leader faces.
The Tory leadership contest between (clockwise from top-left) Robert Jenrick, Kemi Badenoch, James Cleverly and Tom Tugendhat is set to be cut short to allow Rishi Sunak ‘s successor to take on Rachel Reeves at next month’s Budget
Ms Reeves’s (pictured) ‘parliament-defining’ Budget is due on October 30
Senior Tories now plan to push the idea again when the field of four is whittled down to two after this week’s Conservative Party conference.
Both candidates will have to agree for the plan to go ahead, but a source said they would be ‘advised they are making a big mistake if they don’t’.
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One insider described the current timetable as ‘mad’, adding: ‘If it stays as it is we are going to have Rishi Sunak responding to the most important Budget of this parliament and then stepping down three days later. By that point he will be the definition of a lame-duck leader.’
Another said: ‘There is going to be another attempt to cut short the contest when we are down to the final two because there is a clear logic to it.
‘The Leader of the Opposition only really has two guaranteed opportunities a year to make a public impact – one is the leader’s speech at conference and the other is responding to the Budget.
‘Labour are going to use this Budget to get all the bad stuff out of the way and to try and blame it on us – it will define the whole parliament – and the new leader has to shape our response to that.’
Tory activists will gather in Birmingham tomorrow for the start of the party conference, which will focus almost entirely on the contest to succeed Mr Sunak (pictured)
Tory activists will gather in Birmingham tomorrow for the start of the party conference, which will focus almost entirely on the contest to succeed Mr Sunak.
Dame Priti Patel and Mel Stride were knocked out in the first round of the contest in July, leaving Kemi Badenoch, Robert Jenrick, James Cleverly and Tom Tugendhat to fight it out.
This week’s conference has been organised as a ‘beauty contest’ to allow the candidates to make their pitches to party members.
All four face a series of interviews, question-and-answer sessions and media appearances, culminating on Wednesday when each will give 20-minute speech in the main conference hall.
Mr Jenrick is the bookmakers’ favourite after topping a poll of Tory MPs in July.
