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Ken Clarke resigns from government as Tories reshuffle top team Ken Clarke resigns from cabinet with parting warning to Cameron over EU
(about 7 hours later)
Former chancellor Kenneth Clarke, who has held office in every Conservative government since 1972, is to resign as a minister. Kenneth Clarke, the former chancellor who has championed the European cause as a member of every Tory government since 1972, resigned from the cabinet on Monday with a warning to David Cameron that he will remain in parliament to fight in favour of Britain's membership of the EU.
The veteran MP, who recently celebrated his 74th birthday, was in jovial mood on Monday as he joked with colleagues that he was looking forward to enjoying more time watching his beloved cricket. In a sign that the veteran MP is prepared for a final great battle of his political career in the runup to the prime minister's planned EU referendum in 2017, Clarke said that the case for Britain's membership of the EU is stronger than ever.
Clarke, who first entered parliament in 1970 and secured his first job as a whip in 1972 in Edward Heath's government, is so far the most high-profile minister to leave office in Monday's reshuffle. David Jones, the Wales secretary, has also left the government. Clarke, who secured his first job as a whip in 1972 in Edward Heath's government, made a point of making a high-profile Downing Street visit to see the prime minister rather than in the more discreet setting of his House of Commons office.
Tory sources have made clear that the prime minister wants the "old lags" to move on to make way for women and younger men. Esther McVey, the employment minister, Liz Truss, the childcare minister, and Nicky Morgan, the women's minister, are all expected to be promoted. Friends of Clarke, who recently celebrated his 74th birthday, said he was in jovial mood on Monday as he joked with colleagues that he was looking forward to enjoying more time watching cricket. In his resignation letter to the prime minister, he wrote: "I have been doing red boxes at night for a high proportion of my adult life. There are plenty of other able people who could take on the work that I was doing in government and I think the time has come to return to being a veteran backbencher."
As a highly professional veteran, who stood for the Tory leadership on three occasions between 1997 and 2005, Clarke is understood to have taken the initiative and offered to resign his non-voting cabinet post as minister without portfolio promoting British trade. But his friends also said that Clarke believes he has one great political mission left before he reaches his 80th birthday, which has motivated him to stand again next year as MP for Rushcliffe: to preserve Britain's position within the EU.
Clarke was brought back onto the Tory frontbench at the initiative of George Osborne in early 2009 after the return of Peter Mandelson to the Labour cabinet in 2008. Clarke had sat on the Tory opposition benches between 1997 and 2009. Setting himself at odds with the prime minister, who says that Britain's current EU membership terms are unacceptable, Clarke said in his resignation letter: "I intend to remain as an active backbencher in the House of Commons. My belief in Britain's membership of the European Union remains as firm as ever and I think the political and economic case is made even stronger in today's gloabalised economy and dangerously disturbed world. We must not diminish Britain's ability to influence events in the next few decades."
Clarke shadowed Mandelson as shadow business secretary until the general election in 2010. The coalition, which led to the appointment of Vince Cable as business secretary, led to Clarke's appointment as justice secretary resuming responsibilities for prisons. He had been responsible for them as home secretary between 1992 and 1993. Some of Clarke's friends have said that the prime minister is risking Britain's membership with what they regard as pointless rows such as the appointment of Jean-Claude Juncker as president of the European commission.
Lord Howard, the former Tory leader who attended Cambridge university at the same time as Clarke, paid a warm tribute to his former cabinet colleague. Howard, who clashed with Clarke on Europe, told the PM programme on BBC Radio 4: "Ken Clarke has made an extraordinary contribution to our public life; in particular I think he was an absolutely outstanding chancellor of the exchequer. It is therefore quite a moment. Clarke, a greatly experienced politician who stood for the Tory leadership on three occasions between 1997, took the initiative and offered to resign his non-voting cabinet post as minister without portfolio promoting British trade. In his resignation letter, he focused on the positive achievements of the government which faced the worst financial crisis of his lifetime after the deepest and longest recession since the second world war.
"I have [known him] longer than either of us would care to remember. We were contemporaries at Cambridge over 50 years ago. He always speaks his mind and we have been capable of maintaining a friendship over these years despite the fact that we have quite often disagreed with each other on political issues. That says a great deal about the kind of person he is." "I believe that we have saved the country from economic disaster, although we have a long way to go before we have the modern, healthy and competitive economy that the next generation needs."
He was brought back onto the Tory frontbench at the initiative of George Osborne in early 2009 after the return of Peter Mandelson to the Labour cabinet in 2008. Clarke had sat on the Tory opposition benches between 1997 and 2009.
Clarke shadowed Mandelson as shadow business secretary until the general election in 2010. The coalition, which led to the appointment of Vince Cable as business secretary, led to Clarke's appointment as justice secretary, resuming responsibilities for prisons. He had been responsible for them as home secretary between 1992 and 1993.
Lord Howard, the former Tory leader who attended the University of Cambridge at the same time as Clarke, paid a warm tribute to his former cabinet colleague. Howard, who clashed with Clarke on Europe, told the PM programme on BBC Radio 4: "Ken Clarke has made an extraordinary contribution to our public life; in particular I think he was an absolutely outstanding chancellor of the exchequer. It is therefore quite a moment."