Conservative leadership battle is 'arms race to be the most Faragiste', Michael Heseltine says

The former deputy prime minister warned that a no-deal Brexit could blight Conservative electoral hopes for a generation

The peer said he would not be forced into betraying his belief in the EU project (Getty)

The race to succeed Theresa May risks descending into a Nigel Farage lookalike contest, with consequences that could blight the Conservatives’ electoral prospects for a generation, Michael Heseltine has warned.

The former deputy prime minister said the Tories are in danger of being captured by the “narrow nationalism and phobia-filled and poisonous politics” of Mr Farage, driving away millions of Conservative voters who support a Final Say referendum on EU membership.

He warned that if the new prime minister rejects a public vote, he or she will be faced with the bleak alternatives of a harmful no-deal Brexit or a general election which could lead to a Jeremy Corbyn-led government.

The peer, who had the Tory whip suspended after voting Liberal Democrat in last week’s European elections, said he would not be silenced or forced into betraying his belief in the EU project.

Contenders in the leadership race have taken increasingly hardline positions on Brexit, with Esther McVey stating that the UK should “actively embrace” withdrawal without agreement and frontrunner Boris Johnson promising to ensure it happens on 31 October, “deal or no deal”.

Newly declared contender James Cleverly said he was "Brexit tooth and claw", though he said no deal was “not my preferred destination”.

Dominic Raab, the former Brexit secretary, told ITV News that he would go back to Brussels to ask the EU to reconsider the alternative arrangements for the Irish border set out in the "Malthouse compromise", and made clear he was ready to go for no deal if they refused.

"If it’s the EU's choice that they're not going to give anything, that they're not going to budge, that they're going to remain stubbornly intransigent, then we must give the public and businesses the finality of saying that we would leave at the end of October, and as prime minister, that's what I would do," said Mr Raab.

Dominic Raab said he would be ready to walk away without a deal (ITV News)

He said he had pushed for a "more robust" line during negotiations but was "undermined by others in government", with the result that his chances of getting a deal acceptable to parliament were reduced.

Mr Raab, Ms McVey, Mr Johnson and Andrea Leadsom have all said they would be prepared to take the UK out of the EU without a deal in October. But Jeremy Hunt, the foreign secretary, warned it would be “political suicide”.

In a speech to mark his appointment as president of independent pressure group the European Movement, Lord Heseltine said he viewed the impending contest with “dread”.

“The prospect of a new prime minister being chosen by perhaps little more than 100,000 Conservative Party members in the current circumstances fills me with dread,” he said.

“There will be an arms race in which candidates vie against each other for who can be the most Faragiste.”

Despite confident assurances from leadership candidate of their intention to renegotiate the withdrawal agreement obtained by Ms May last November, Lord Heseltine said that the new prime minister will soon themselves unable to get a new deal or to persuade the House of Commons to back any form of Brexit.

Any attempt in these circumstances to run down the clock to a no-deal Brexit by default on Halloween would be “nothing short of a democratic and constitutional outrage”, he said.

“If successful, the consequences for businesses, for young people and for the integrity of the United Kingdom itself would rightly be hung around the neck of the Conservative Party for a generation to come,” warned Lord Heseltine.

But the alternative of a general election would be “similarly bleak”, with the Tories potentially forced into alliance with a newly elected cohort of Brexit Party MPs.

“The consequence would either be a Tory-led or a Corbyn-led minority hung parliament that would settle nothing, or the prospect of the Conservative Party – the party of Disraeli, Churchill, Macmillan and Thatcher – in alliance with and captured by the narrow nationalism, phobia-filled and poisonous politics of Nigel Farage,” said Lord Heseltine.

He added: ““Today, I want to appeal to every sensible Conservative MP, to potential leadership candidates, even to the Labour leader, not to force Brexit upon us now. I ask them to stand up, to speak out for our democratic right to have our say on Brexit.

“Whether you want to leave the EU or to stay in, the only way to unlock the Brexit process in parliament, the only way secure a stable majority in parliament, the only way to legitimise the outcome so we can build a lasting settlement in the country is to give the people the final say.”