Senior Tories, including the new education secretary, are resisting pressure to speed up action to replace Boris Johnson as party leader, insisting there must be a full contest involving members.
James Cleverley, who took charge of the education department on Thursday, also said Johnson had not set a timetable for how long he would remain in Downing Street after stepping down as Tory leader.
He rejected former prime minister John Major’s call to speed up the appointment of a new leader by suspending the final vote by Conservative Party members across the country.
“I think testing a candidate’s ability to reach beyond the Westminster bubble is incredibly important, so I think it’s an important part of the process,” Cleverley told Sky News.
Potential candidates who would benefit from a full member race include Ben Wallace and Penny Mordaunt, who topped a YouGov poll this week of Conservative members.
On Monday, an executive election will be held for the Conservative Party’s Committee 1922, which will then set the rules and timetable for the leadership race.
Under current rules, MPs will vote in a series of secret ballots – depending on how many candidates there are – with the last two going to a members’ vote.
Cleverly’s position was echoed on Friday morning by Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, the treasurer of the 1922 Committee, who told BBC Radio 4’s Today program that the vote for the next prime minister was likely to go to party members
“In the circumstances, with the division in the party, I think it’s good that it goes to the members so they have an opportunity to have their say and vote.”
Cleverley also said Johnson would not make decisions that would tie his successor’s hands while he remained in No.10.
“The functions of government go on, and that’s true when you go through a change of leadership, as we’re about to do now, or when there’s a general election. It’s a very well-established principle,” he told BBC Radio 4.
“The prime minister has made it clear in cabinet that we will not do anything that ties the hands of our successors, we will not do anything that is new or a major change from the current course of action.”
Cleverley’s remarks were in sharp contrast to George Freeman, one of the last ministers to leave before Johnson made his announcement, who said the tone of the Prime Minister’s Downing Street address did not suggest he would do his time in “quiet humility and remorse’. .
“My real concern is that the volatility will fuel a feverish moment of madness in the middle of the summer when we elect the wrong person in a hurry because of the volatility,” he said.
However, a vigorous push by the Tories for Johnson to step down this week to make way for another caretaker prime minister appears to be fading.
Caroline Noakes, a former minister who has been one of Johnson’s most consistent critics, told the Today program it was important to focus on the future, uniting the Conservative Party and “getting the economy back on track”. The leadership race should wrap up in the next few weeks, she said.
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Another former Tory minister, Andrew Mitchell, said the party’s next leader should be someone “clearly moral” who was “untainted” by Johnson’s “mistakes”.
He told the BBC: “We need to have a leader who is untainted, untainted if you like, by mistakes. Especially in the tone of the government, as well as in some of its actions, it must be a man of obvious experience. Finally, I think it should be someone who is clearly moral and decent.
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