Paul Scully, who has announced that he is standing down as a Conservative MP at the next election, has slammed the party for allowing Labour’s Sadiq Khan “a free run” at the next mayoral election.

The former Minister for London, who was not selected as the Tory candidate, told GB News: “In the future, certainly this mayoral election, it’s been touted around that I’m going to stand as an independent. I’m not going to be, but let’s see what we do in the future.

“London is really important to me. I spent four years as Minister for London and when London does well, the UK does well. There are nine million people that are so different from each other that come together to make this most amazing city, so I care passionately about it.

“I want the Conservatives and everybody, frankly, to do the best for the city. And I think we’re just letting them down at the moment by allowing Sadiq Khan a comparatively free run.”

The MP for Sutton and Cheam suggested that infighting within the party is to blame for his decision, not his recent controversial comments on so-called “no-go areas” in London and Birmingham.

In a discussion with Tom Harwood and Emily Carver, he said: “It’s a while in the making. I lost my mojo sometime last year and it’s not right that, you know – look at what’s happening in the party.

“I think Sutton and Cheam is eminently winnable. But the next five years I think are a challenge for me personally, so it’s not right that I’m there when someone else should probably take up the cudgels and move things forward…

“It’s just born of my frustration with politics as a whole and where we are going, where we risk going as a party over the next five years if we don’t up our game and create a vision, a different positive vision for the country.”

He added: “I want to be able to move on to pastures new by helping the party rebuild, because you have to do it from the centre ground, taking people with you. It’s not about losing a battle, a battle of ideas, but it’s just not diving into an ideology without taking people with you.

“Rather than just sitting in the deep end and saying, ‘the waters warm, come in’, start in the centre ground and move people with you wherever you want to go.”

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