Liz Truss is poised to the enter an increasingly bitter Conservative leadership race, as top contenders lurched to the right on Brexit, immigration and tax policy in a desperate bid for backers.
The foreign secretary is expected to launch her bid with a pledge to reverse Rishi Sunak’s national insurance rise, despite economists warning that the tax cuts proposed by the former chancellor’s rivals are “nuts” and potentially inflationary.
Sajid Javid, Tom Tugendhat and Jeremy Hunt all backed the highly controversial plan to put asylum seekers on one-way flights to Rwanda, with Mr Hunt saying he hoped the “offshoring” could be expanded to more countries.
Despite being viewed as moderates from the One Nation wing of the party, Mr Tugendhat and Mr Hunt also vowed to push on with Boris Johnson’s plan to rip up Brexit agreements with the EU through the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill.
Describing Brexit as a “revolution” that could not be overturned, Mr Tugendhat vowed to make sure Northern Ireland was “fully and completely part of the UK single market”.
Mr Hunt also backed the bill and suggested that he regretted supporting the Remain campaign – saying he would be “very tempted” to vote Leave if he could go back to 2016. He also said he would make ardent Brexiteer Esther McVey his deputy prime minister if he won the contest.
It came as right-wing Brexiteer Suella Braverman attempted to outdo her leadership rivals by promising to take the UK out of the “jurisdiction” of the European Court of Human Rights.
The attorney general said it was “unacceptable” for the Strasbourg court to have blocked the first attempted Rwanda flight last month, though it is not clear whether she intends to withdraw the UK from its commitment to the European Convention on Human Rights, which the court oversees.
Ms Truss is set to promise a reversal of Mr Sunak’s April national insurance increase as part of a “low tax” vow set out in her formal leadership launch on Monday.
Paul Johnson, the head of the Institute of Fiscal Studies, said on Twitter that critics of the idea were correct to point out that cutting taxes does not “magically” boost growth.
But Tory rivals pushed to outflank Mr Sunak, who has warned against “fairytale” promises, with various pledges.
Mr Javid claimed his plans for £39bn worth of income and corporation tax cuts per year would be fully funded, saying he would ask all departments to make savings. He promised to set out the details in a “scorecard” in the coming days.
Responding to Mr Javid and Mr Hunt’s plans to cut corporation tax to 15 per cent, Torsten Bell, chief executive of the Resolution Foundation think tank, said: “This is nuts. We’re talking £30bn odd. This is going to be one expensive leadership election.”
Labour branded the increasingly acrimonious contest a “chaotic catwalk”, as Tory MPs opposed to Mr Sunak circulated a so-called “dirty dossier” designed to stop support building for his campaign.
The 424-word memo shared on Tory WhatsApp groups pointed out that Mr Sunak had registered his campaign website in December, and that he “secretly” held a US green card. It also questioned his explanation for his wife’s non-dom tax status, which was revealed by The Independent in April.
One Tory source told The Independent that the memo shared by some MPs was part of a campaign among right-wingers loyal to Mr Johnson to stop the contest becoming a “coronation” for Mr Sunak.
The former chancellor’s campaign continued to pick up momentum, however, as ex-ministers Simon Hart and Helen Whately backed him and pushed the number of endorsements past 30, putting him out in front of the field.
Grant Shapps appeared to attack the frontrunner in an interview with The Sunday Times, saying: “I have not spent the last few turbulent years plotting … I have not been mobilising a leadership campaign behind his back.”
And loyal Johnson ally Zac Goldsmith also attacked Mr Sunak over his record on the environment, though he denied any personal animosity towards the former chancellor.
Lord Goldsmith claimed that Mark Spencer – one of Mr Sunak’s senior campaign backers – had been lined up for a key role as environment secretary if the ex-chancellor wins the contest. “He will be our very own little Bolsonaro,” he said of Mr Spencer.
Mr Javid, who quit Mr Johnson’s government just minutes before Mr Sunak on Tuesday evening, denied plotting with the former chancellor to get rid of the PM.
Asked if he had agreed a resignation plan with Mr Sunak, the ex-health secretary told the BBC’s Sunday Morning programme: “Not at all. This was a decision made by me.”
Penny Mordaunt picked up a flurry of endorsements after launching her campaign on Sunday with an unusually bombastic video on Twitter. The Royal Navy reservist’s video featured images of soldiers and fighter planes set to the patriotic rugby anthem “World in Union”.
The video raised eyebrows over a sequence showing Oscar Pistorius, the South African athlete found guilty of murder, alongside British Paralympic champion Jonnie Peacock. It was later reposted without the Paralympic sequence after Mr Peacock told her he “officially requested to be removed from this video”.
Lib Dem deputy leader Daisy Cooper said the Tory candidates were all “pursuing the same divisive agenda as Johnson, and trying to out bid each other with appalling policies and culture wars”, adding: “It truly is Boris Johnson’s Conservative party now.”
The Conservative Party’s 1922 Committee of backbenchers, which sets the rules for the first stage of the contest, will set out the exact timetable after a meeting on Monday. Bob Blackman, who sits on the executive, said that nominations would close on Tuesday evening, followed by a process to whittle candidates down to a final two by 21 July.
