The race to succeed Theresa May has escalated as 10 contenders from the Conservative party spent Monday either touting their visions for the future or busily refusing to rule out running.

With the prime minister’s final attempt to pass a Brexit deal being dismissed by all wings of the party and her time in Downing Street being measured in weeks, there were two full-blown launches of new party groupings on Monday.

On the hardline Brexiter wing, the former work and pensions secretary, Esther McVey, kicked off a movement to reconnect the Tories with working-class voters by promising to slash the overseas aid budget and give the money saved to schools and police.

At an event seen as the start of her leadership campaign, though not billed as such, McVey said her new group, Blue Collar Conservatism, would push for the overseas aid budget to be cut from the current level of about £14.5bn a year to the £8.5bn seen in 2010, with the balance going to domestic priorities.

Later in the day, McVey’s successor in the work and pensions job, Amber Rudd, led a push from the centrist, remain-minded wing of the Conservatives for their views to be heard, notably in rejecting a no-deal Brexit.

“The Conservative party is entering a new phase and we here in this room are determined to shape that phase,” Rudd told the One Nation caucus.

Quick Guide Tory tribes Show The ERG hardcore The most resistant segment of the European Research Group of Eurosceptic Tory MPs comprises 28 pro-Brexit backbenchers who have refused to be wooed by Theresa May and opposed her third attempt to pass her Brexit deal. Steve Baker, Andrew Bridgen and Mark Francois are the most vocal members. Jacob Rees-Mogg remains close to the group despite backing May’s deal. Another 100 MPs have been associated with the ERG, including the potential Tory leadership candidates Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and Andrea Leadsom. Blue-collar Conservatives Esther McVey, a Brexiter who reluctantly voted for Theresa May’s deal, is the latest Tory to breathe life into the idea of blue-collar conservatism, previously championed by Robert Halfon, the chair of the education select committee. McVey launched her version on 20 May at an event widely seen as the unofficial start of her leadership bid. She and fellow MPs including Eddie Hughes, Ben Bradley and Scott Mann plan to tour UK pubs to spread their message. McVey’s supporters claim to have up to 40 MPs signed up to the group; other Brexiters claim the figure is less than 20. One Nation Group Amber Rudd has spearheaded this pro-remain, anti-no-deal group of MPs, which includes the international development secretary, Rory Stewart, and the former cabinet ministers Nicky Morgan and Damian Green. The group claims to have more than 60 MPs onboard and plans to stand against “narrow nationalism” and division and in favour of internationalism, environmental policies and protecting consumers from corporations and an “over-mighty state”.



Scottish Tories Led by the hugely popular Ruth Davidson, the leader of the Scottish Tories in Holyrood, and the Scottish secretary, David Mundell, this group’s overtly remain tendencies put them at odds with the likes of the ERG. Among the 13 Scottish Tory MPs and 31 MSPs there is controversy over Boris Johnson, who is a highly divisive figure in Scotland.

Modernists A loose term nowadays, since the former Cameroons are largely nowhere to be seen. Those flying the flag for a more socially progressive, relatable kind of conservatism include the former education secretary Justine Greening and the health secretary, Matt Hancock, who even set up his own app in an attempt to keep up with the digital age. Both Greening and Hancock want to move on from Brexit so that other issues can be dealt with, but they are split on what that should look like. Greening has promoted a second referendum, while Hancock is urging all Brexiters to get behind May’s deal.



Other cabinet moderates who might stand for the leadership role – Rory Stewart and David Gauke – entered the meeting for a private briefing as the media were ushered out.

It fell to Nicholas Soames to sum up the frustration of centrist Tories, who he said had been “drowned out by the very aggressive and intolerant tone of the ERG”.

Both Rudd and McVey are seen as outside chances to succeed May in a race where Boris Johnson is still clear favourite. Rudd has not even officially said she will stand. As such, their events were as much about shoring up their position in a future administration, both in terms of ministerial jobs and overall vision.

McVey made it plain that in her view the new prime minister must be a true Brexit believer – a definition that would rule out not just the likes of Rudd but also the born-again Brexiters Jeremy Hunt and Sajid Javid.

Hunt and Javid themselves, while widely assumed to be interested in the post, were notably coy when asked about it on Monday. Javid, asked about his ambitions after a speech on counter-terrorism, said: “The prime minister has said she will step down. When she does there will be no shortage of candidates and whether I’m one of them, you’ll have to wait and see.”

Hunt, speaking at an event in Geneva, said voters “want Brexit sorted … as quickly as possible and we have a responsibility to find every which way to do that”.

Hunt said a no-deal departure would be “immensely disruptive”, and he declined to be drawn on a leadership bid, telling Channel 4 News: “What I can confirm is I want to sort Brexit along with my cabinet colleagues and that’s what we’re discussing tomorrow.”

Quick Guide Tory leadership contenders Show Jeremy Hunt His style is notably technocratic, with few rhetorical flourishes and an emphasis on his consensual approach and long record as a minister, notably during more than five years as health secretary, a traditional graveyard of ministerial careers. Hunt’s attempts to talk up a backstory as an 'underestimated' entrepreneur can fall flat given he is also the son of an admiral and was head boy at Charterhouse. Overall, Hunt’s approach can seem uninspiring and hard to pin down in terms of core beliefs, hence the 'Theresa in trousers' nickname among some Tory MPs – one that is more catchy than accurate (since May herself often wears trousers). In the final round of MP voting Hunt edged out Michael Gove, 77 votes to 75. Boris Johnson Johnson’s progress to Downing Street appeared unstoppable even before an overwhelming victory in the first round of voting among MPs. Most of his colleagues believe it is now all but inevitable that he will be Britain’s next prime minister. His well-disciplined campaign team will continue with their strategy of subjecting him to minimal media exposure, though once the field is narrowed down to two, the final pair will appear in more than a dozen head-to-head hustings for Tory members. The team’s main aim is simply to keep heads down and avoid Johnson creating headlines for the wrong reasons. It may not have worked. Johnson came first in the final round of MP voting with 160 votes.



Falling somewhere between the two approaches was Matt Hancock. The health secretary simultaneously refused to definitively confirm a pitch for No 10 while outlining at some length what his personal vision would be if he did.

Sent out for a round of media interviews to talk up May’s seemingly doomed Brexit plan, which returns to the Commons at the start of next month, Hancock told the BBC: “I don’t rule out standing for the leadership of the Conservative party.”

Hancock was later obliged to explain why he, as health secretary, was pictured eating a high-fat waffle for breakfast.

The defence secretary, Penny Mordaunt, used her first Commons outing in the new job since taking from the sacked Gavin Williamson to say Jeremy Corbyn was wrong on a series of global issues ranging from the Falklands to Russia and to Hamas.

At an event on Monday night with several leadership hopefuls, the former Brexit minister Dominic Raab called for a 5p cut in the basic rate of income tax.

The other possible contenders speaking at the Telegraph event – Hancock, Liz Truss, James Cleverly and Victoria Atkins – also urged the Tory leadership to put money back in voters’ pockets, solve the housing crisis and deliver Brexit to see off the threat of Jeremy Corbyn and Nigel Farage.