Cleverly rules out frontbench role under new Tory leader

Shadow home secretary James Cleverly has said he will not accept a frontbench role from the next leader of the Conservative Party, after they are unveiled on Saturday.

The winning candidate - Kemi Badenoch or Robert Jenrick - is likely to carry out an immediate reshuffle of the Tory frontbench team.

But Cleverly has told the Financial Times (FT), external he will return to the backbenches rather than serve in either candidate's shadow cabinet.

Following the Tory conference, Cleverly briefly became the frontrunner in the race to replace Rishi Sunak, but was surprisingly knocked out in the final ballot of MPs.

He told the FT he had been "liberated" from 16 years on the political front line and was now "not particularly in the mood to be boxed back into a narrow band again".

Cleverly shot to the front of the pack of leadership candidates after a well-received speech to the Conservative conference early last month, in which he called for the party to be "more normal" and sell its policies "with a smile".

However, his support unexpectedly fell away in the last round of MPs' voting.

Many theories were advanced on why that had happened, including that some of his supporters had tried to engineer the final line-up they wanted.

The former home and foreign secretary was eliminated with 37 votes. Badenoch secured 42 and Jenrick 41.