Javid: Johnson should not face another Oxford graduate in runoff

Sajid Javid has hit out at the idea of a final runoff in the Tory leadership election that is “some kind of Oxford Union debate” between Boris Johnson and another candidate, as he suggested his failure to be the most confident speaker could be due to his working-class background.

Javid, who is the son of a Pakistani bus driver, said he thought the contender to face Johnson should not be another Oxford University graduate or Old Etonian, but someone “with genuine experience of life”.

All the other candidates in the contest – Johnson, Jeremy Hunt, Michael Gove, Rory Stewart and Dominic Raab – went to Oxford, and all of them have attended private school, although Gove won a scholarship from a modest background and Raab attended a private primary school before attending a grammar school.

In contrast, Javid, the home secretary, grew up in a working-class family in Bristol, going to a comprehensive school and then further education college, before going later to Exeter University. He tried to apply to enter banking in the City but was turned away and eventually was taken on by an American firm, which launched him into a high-flying financial career.

Asked about whether he was confident he would make the final two, Javid said: “Boris will be one of the final two. The question is who should be the other person alongside Boris … There is a growing feeling in the party that when we get to the final two we should have a robust debate between two credible change candidates. We need change … People don’t want to see a final that’s some kind of Oxford Union debate.”

What happens next in the Tory party leadership race?

As she announced on 24 May, stepped down formally as Conservative leader on Friday 7 June, although she remains in place as prime minister until her successor is chosen.

MPs will hold a series of votes, in order to narrow down the initially crowded field to two leadership hopefuls.

How does the voting work?

MPs choose one candidate, in a secret ballot held in a committee room in the House of Commons. The votes are tallied and the results announced on the same day.

The 1922 Committee has decided that after the first round, any candidate who wins the support of less than 17 MPs, will be eliminated. And after the second round, the threshold will be set at 33 MPs.

Rounds of voting will then continue until just two candidates remain. The first round was held on Thursday 13 June. Subsequent rounds have been pencilled in for the 18th, 19th and 20th.

The two remaining candidates will then be put to the Conservative membership for a vote.

When will the results be announced?

Once MPs have whittled down the field to two, Conservative party HQ takes over the running of the next stage, which it says will be completed in the week beginning Monday 22 July.

Will there be hustings?

Yes: MPs have organised a series of events themselves to put the candidates through their paces, kicking off with an event convened by the One Nation group on Tuesday evening. Conservative party HQ will organise its own events; and the BBC has also announced several televised debates between the candidates.

In a critique of racial discrimination in the job market, he said the reason he had got into banking was “because for a young Asian like me, most Asians, they go into jobs that you need to take an exam for, like chartered accountant, dentist”. He said this was not because their parents valued those professions more highly but because “discrimination is so inevitable in professions where you don’t have to take exams”.

The home secretary was then challenged as to why MPs would vote for him as a change candidate when Stewart – another Old Etonian – had been gaining momentum with his fresh approach.

“I didn’t go to top schools or go to debating society at Oxford … I am trying my best to communicate in the best way that I can … I might not be the most confident debater, or the most confident speaker. But I think what people want to see is someone who is genuine, who is honest, who has answers and experience of life, real life, life in business,” he told a hustings event for political journalists in Westminster. He also criticised Stewart for trying too hard to appeal to Labour voters.

Stewart’s odds with the bookies have shortened since he launched his campaign with a series of walks and shaky handheld videos of himself talking to members of the public.

At the hustings, he laid into Johnson for seemingly telling MPs different things in order to win their support. The frontrunner failed to appear at the hustings or the Channel 4 debate on Sunday night.

“Somehow he’s convinced Matt Hancock that he agrees with every word that Matt says, that he’s in favour of the softest of soft Brexits, he’s convinced Robert Buckland that he would never go for a no-deal and at the same time he’s got Mark Francois roaring: ‘This man looked me in the eyes and promised we’re going out on the hardest of no-deal Brexits,’” he said.

Stewart insisted he was the best candidate to face Johnson in a runoff, even though he is not certain to get the 33 MPs necessary to stay in the race. He also refused to say whether he would vote leave or remain in another EU referendum, which is unlikely to impress the heavily Eurosceptic Tory membership who will pick the eventual winner.

Raab, the former Brexit secretary, in his hustings slot, described the event as an “essential gauntlet”. That appeared to be a dig at Johnson’s non-appearance.

Hunt also undermined Johnson, saying his approach as foreign secretary to the Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe case had been a “mistake”, and Gove, the environment secretary, pointed out that any comparisons between Johnson and Hamlet should remember that the Shakespearean protagonist does not become king at the end of the play.

Johnson declined to appear before journalists, but chose to use his column in the Daily Telegraph, for which he is paid, to announce plans to extend full-fibre broadband to every home in the country within five years, nine years ahead of the government’s 2033 target.