Rudd: A no-deal PM would not command majority

The candidate who wins the Conservative leadership contest could fail to become prime minister if they back a no-deal Brexit, Amber Rudd has said.

The work and pensions secretary told BBC Newsnight "a no deal prime minister would not be able to command a majority in the House".

Convention dictates that a departing prime minister has to advise the Queen on a successor based on one criterion: an ability to command a majority in parliament. The convention is designed to protect the monarch from political turmoil.

If the next Tory leader is a Brexiteer committed to no deal, Theresa May may struggle to offer clear advice to the Queen.

Rudd has declined to say whether she will stand for leadership.

'Push for the Iron Throne'

"Let them all speculate," she said in answer to suggestions she will form a "Bamber" alliance with Boris Johnson.

"I would much rather see people focusing on the jobs they've got in hand," she said.

"Genuinely I think that is what the public expect of us as well."

"This shouldn't be some Game of Thrones push for the Iron Throne. We've all got important jobs to do. Let's deliver on those."

The work and pensions secretary went on to criticise the way in which Tory leadership hopefuls Jeremy Hunt and Dominic Raab had paraded their wives in front of the media.

Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt (centre left) and his wife Lucia (left) were pictured at the British embassy in Ethiopia.

Hunt took his wife Lucia Guo on a recent trip to Africa where he described her as a "great diplomatic weapon" for Britain.

Meanwhile Dominic Raab conducted a joint newspaper interview with his wife last weekend.

"People have a different way of addressing this leadership issue," Rudd said.

"I don't think we need to parade partners in the way that we have been seeing. I am much more interested in the policies that people want to bring forward than the actual people. When it comes to that election leadership I think that is what will really influence the voters."

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In a sign of the depth of thinking about the leadership contest, Rudd said the "best prime minister we could have" would be one "trying to deliver on a softer Brexit that could command a majority if we can work with Labour".

"Parliament is a hung parliament at the moment. We know that it is an incredibly difficult group of MPs to influence and to control and to get a majority at the moment," she told Newsnight.

"So whoever makes the pitch in the future is going to have to convince everybody that they can hold that majority together."

The leadership teams are preparing for candidates to be asked by Brexiteer Tories to give commitments during the Westminster round of votes.

The European Research Group is expected to use it hustings to ask candidates to give undertakings to remove the Northern Ireland backstop from the withdrawal agreement and possibly to scrap it altogether.

Pro-Europeans say that would risk no deal because the EU has said it will not change the withdrawal agreement. Some pro-European Tories have indicated they would resign the Tory whip if the winning candidate endorses no deal.

The work and pensions secretary was speaking to Newsnight after a speech in which she announced that the maximum sanctions for benefit claimants will be cut from three years to six months. The move is designed to show a less harsh approach to welfare as part of Rudd's 'One Nation' style of Conservatism.

Rudd challenged the idea that the Labour party is more in tune with voters.

Asked about Jeremy Corbyn's claim that austerity, insecure work and low wages cause anger and disillusion, she said: "No. I think the Labour party are absolutely nowhere in this area. Their whole idea about reviving jobs is about jobs of the past. They talk about mill workers, sometimes even about coal workers.

"The fact is we need to look ahead. We need to think about where the jobs of the future are coming from."

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