Senior Tories on the moderate One Nation wing of the party are urging the defeated West Midlands mayor Andy Street to consider reviving his political career by standing for a seat at Westminster.
Street suffered the biggest shock of the local and mayoral elections a week ago when he lost to Labour’s Richard Parker by just 1,508 votes in a knife-edge contest.
The narrow defeat deprived the former head of John Lewis of a third term in charge of the second largest mayoral region in England. Street suggested he would take some time before deciding on his next move.
But Damian Green, chair of the One Nation group of Tory MPs at Westminster, made clear he believed Street would be a great addition to the parliamentary party.
“I would very much welcome Andy staying in active politics, as an MP if he wants, as he is a huge asset to the Conservatives and has a track record that any Conservative would be proud of,” Green said.
Other Tories on the left and centre of the party believe he could even mount a challenge for the leadership were the party to lose heavily at the general election and prime minister Rishi Sunak were to stand down.
Another senior Tory said: “Andy has not spent time in government, but he has run a big city and a large business. He knows how to run things and he knows about politics. He has a great track record. I can see him emerging as a very credible candidate for a position not just as an MP but as one at the top of our party.”
With a general election approaching, the Conservative party will be looking for candidates in several seats in the West Midlands, where Street will already have very high voter recognition. One vacancy will be in Solihull West and Shirley (which the Tories held with a majority of more than 21,000 in 2019). Solihull was one of the seven council districts voting in the mayoral election and where Street won by a large margin.
In his resignation speech, which was generous to the victor and gracious in tone, Street thanked his team and said he was sorry that he had not been able to win a third term. He appeared to hint that he might stand for the mayoralty again in four years’ time, telling his supporters and allies he was sure they would fight to live another day.
During his campaign he went out of his way to dissociate himself from Sunak and the Conservative party, describing his offer as “brand Andy”.
Tory MPs fully understood why he had to do this to have a chance of retaining the mayoralty.
The Spectator magazine last week praised his dignity in defeat and wondered whether one day Street could rise to the very top of the party.
“It was a classy performance, one which will have sharpened the sadness many Conservatives already felt at his loss,” the magazine said. “Street balanced acceptance with an honest admission of acute disappointment, and that collection of emotions felt real and unfiltered. After a grim few days for the party, and with the memory of Susan Hall’s less gracious concession speech in London still fresh in the mind, some have now wondered if Street should now look to a future at Westminster. Perhaps, one theory goes, he might even be a contender for the Conservative leadership in the wake of an election defeat.”
The West Midlands result last Saturday evening capped a disastrous showing for the Tories in the local council mayoral and police commissioner elections. They finished third behind the Liberal Democrats in the number of seats held, for the first time since 1996.
