Tom Tugendhat has vowed not to quit the Conservative leadership race but admitted he was being wooed by other candidates, telling reporters: “I feel like a prom queen.”
The chair of the foreign affairs select committee, who secured enough support to get through the knock-out round on Thursday, said he was determined to compete in the televised debates starting on Friday.
“I’m still in this fight,” he said. “What members of parliament and what members of the Conservative party need to know is that whoever it is they choose as the leader in this process is somebody who can champion those ideas and values in the election that’s coming in 2024. And then, I hope, maybe 2029 as well.”
He said the race had been “a hell of a job interview” but in a hour-long Q&A session with reporters, the MP set out plans for green growth, a commitment to look at the universal credit taper rate to ease the cost of living crisis, and a boost to defence spending and army numbers.
Tugendhat said he hoped he would pick up votes from other candidates – even those who had not yet dropped out of the race. “Where will this go? I don’t know. I can’t tell you. But I can tell you that a lot of people are looking at the options before them today and thinking differently about the votes they made yesterday – and that’s not surprising.”
Tugendhat, who is the most Brexit-sceptic of the candidates in the race, insisted he would not take the UK back into the EU, but said he did not regret voting to remain.
“Six years ago, it was a different question,” he said. “What you’re asking me now is would I ever go back into the European Union? No, I wouldn’t. And the reason I wouldn’t, is because it would be bad for Britain. I have always put Britain first, I will always put Britain first.”
He said he had consistently voted to leave the EU since the referendum. “Once you get your orders, you march on. I work for the people in the United Kingdom … that is literally the job. And I got my orders in June 2016 And I intend to deliver.”
Tugendhat drew some criticism overnight after the Conservative MP Chris Skidmore suggested he had told a hustings that he did not believe the net zero target of 2050 could be met. Tugendhat said he had been expressing a view that the current plans would not meet the target.
But he added: “I find it very, very difficult to justify the argument that it is green to buy solar panels made by slaves in Xinjiang or it is green to buy batteries mined by children in Africa, [creating the] technology in appallingly dirty energy conditions, often made with coal-fired power stations and then turned into batteries in China by often, again, by people whose human rights violations are legendary.”
Tugendhat declined to say whether Boris Johnson had been a good prime minister, citing moments when the pair had clashed bitterly at select committee hearings. “You know that we’ve had our differences. I have never made a secret about it. Frankly, I couldn’t have been more open about my position.”
