David Cameron has resigned from Rishi Sunak’s shadow cabinet, eight months after his return to frontline politics as foreign secretary.
Announcing the news on X, Cameron, who sits in the House of Lords after being made a life peer in 2023, said it was essential that the shadow foreign secretary should sit in the Commons opposite his government counterpart. His Foreign Office deputy Andrew Mitchell, the Conservative MP for Sutton Coldfield, will replace him.
Cameron said he remained a “committed Conservative” who would endeavour to help the party “rebuild from the very disappointing election result“.
Richard Holden struck a similar note in his resignation as Conservative Party chairman. The MP for Basildon and Billericay, who fended off his Labour rival by just 20 votes with the Reform candidate close behind, said in his resignation letter to Sunak that a “thorough review of the general election campaign” is needed.
Many of the key cabinet briefs remained unchanged, the BBC reported, with Jeremy Hunt continuing in his role as shadow chancellor and James Cleverly staying on as shadow home secretary. But new appointments were required after 12 senior ministers lost their seats in last week’s election. James Cartlidge has taken up the role of shadow defence secretary and Ed Argar is shadow justice secretary after Grant Shapps and Alex Chalk were voted out.
Sunak himself said he will stay on as party leader until arrangements for selecting his successor are in place, and allies of the former PM say he has no plans to continue beyond the summer.
A growing number of MPs are “urging the party’s 1922 Committee to opt for a lengthy leadership contest to replace Mr Sunak in order to allow time for a thorough post-mortem and avoid fresh divisions over the summer”, The Telegraph said.
However, some senior Tories fear a prolonged leadership contest could allow Reform’s Nigel Farage to “position himself as de facto leader of the opposition”, said The Guardian.