‘Un-British, un-Christian, unconscionable’: Major condemns Tories’ Rwanda policy – UK politics live

Former PM, in rare interview, says he has not decided who to back for Tory leadership but urges party not to lurch to the right

Good morning. Judged by the amount of time he spent as prime minister, John Major was one of the most successful Conservative prime ministers of the post-war period. Only Margaret Thatcher and Harold Macmillan outlasted him in No 10. But he has not been aligned with mainstream thinking in his party since he resigned after losing the election in 1997, and in an interview being broadcast tonight he has unleashed a fresh attack on the policies of the party he used to lead. While his views are not 100% surprising to anyone who has been listening to him in recent years, they are a stark reminder of how much the political landscape has shifted in the last 30 years.

The interview, with Amol Rajan from the BBC, is being broadcast tonight. Here are the key lines.

Major strongly condemned the Rwanda deportation plan proposed by the last government (and defended by all four candidates still in the Tory leadership contest). He said:

I thought it was un-Conservative, un-British, if one dare say in a secular society, un-Christian, and unconscionable and I thought that this is really not the way to treat people.

We used to transport people, nearly three hundred years ago, from our country. Felons, who at least have had a trial, and been found guilty of something, albeit that the trial might have been cursory. I don’t think transportation, for that is what it is, is a policy suitable for the 21st century.

Major implied the last government deserved to lose the election. He said he did not give many interviews before the election because “there’s not been a great deal I could say, I would wish to say, in favour of what the previous government were doing.” And, talking about the election result, he said:

There’s a time of when democracy needs a change in government. I could see that in 1997, we had been in government for 18 years and it was perfectly true to say, that we were tired and that we were running out of fresh people to make ministers and reinject the government with vigour. And of course the same thing applies [with the recent election results], although it was only 14 years.

He said it would be a mistake for the party to shift further to the right. He said:

The only party that can legitimately appeal to the centre right is the Conservative party. And that is what we have to do, we have to decide where our natural support really lies and appeal to them. People may have made a misjudgement about the last election. We lost five votes to Reform UK and people are jumping up and down, and some, rather reckless people are saying, well we must merge with them.

Well, that will be fatal. We lost 50 to the Liberals, and we lost a huge amount to Labour. We lost the vote on the left, more than on the right. And we have to focus on that centre right position, and we’re not an ideological party, I do think traditionally we have been a commonsense party.