Senior Tory figures trying to oust mayoral candidate Shaun Bailey
Senior Conservative party figures are reportedly trying to replace London mayoral candidate Shaun Bailey with former chancellor Sajid Javid for next year’s election.
Bailey trailed mayor of London Sadiq Khan by 25 per cent in March polling before the election, originally scheduled for May, was postponed to next year due to the coronavirus outbreak.
Khan was expected to win the poll in a landlside, with Bailey unable to make much headway since he was chosen as the Tory candidate in 2018.
The Financial Times is now reporting that senior Tory donors and officials have lost confidence in Bailey’s efforts as a candidate and want him gone.
One prominent donor told the FT that Bailey “just doesn’t have it” and that “every donor meeting he is wheeled out but he just fails to connect”.
Another source said that Javid had been approached to take over for next year’s election and that he was “the only one who could beat Khan”.
Javid, a backbench MP after resigning as chancellor in February, denied he had been approached to take over.
A spokesperson for Bailey said it was only a “a very small number” of people in the Conservative party who do not want the former youth worker as a candidate.
They added: “Nobody in the Conservative party is stupid enough to try to drop Shaun just when he has been landing blows on Sadiq Khan over his failures over TfL and public safety, and when our capital has an opportunity to elect its first black mayor at a time when bringing people together has never been more important.”
An official Conservative spokesperson also said Bailey retained the support of the party.
“Shaun Bailey has led from the front in challenging Sadiq Khan’s abysmal record on tackling violent crime, building affordable homes and failure to deliver Crossrail,” they said.
“He is the only candidate that can defeat Sadiq Khan next year and fix the current Mayor’s litany of failures for Londoners and has our full support in winning that election.”