James Cleverly: 'We can win big' against Sadiq Khan in London mayor election with classic Tories policies

Sir James Cleverly has laid out battlelines against Labour if he is selected as the Tory candidate for Mayor of London .

In an exclusive interview with The Standard, the former Home Secretary, who quit the shadow Cabinet to launch his bid for City Hall , outlined how he would fight the contest as a “classic Conservative”.

His stance signals the potential for an election in 2028 fought on traditional party lines rather than a more focused battle over the Centre ground of politics in London.

“I'm going to run as an aspirational, entrepreneurial, forward-thinking Conservative candidate that is in tune with the city,” he says.

Conservative MP Sir James Cleverly who resigned from the shadow cabinet to stand for Mayor of London PA Pressed whether he is too much on the Right of the Conservative Party for Left-leaning London to make him its mayor, he responds: “I've always been very much the case that people should have individual freedom.

“People should be able to live their lives largely how they wish, as long as it doesn't impinge on the freedom and liberty of others.

“An overly large and intrusive government, whether it be central government, local government, London government, limits both the freedom of the individual and the opportunity for businesses, and that's again a classically Conservative proposition.

“I want people to live their lives. I want people to have choice. I want people to have freedom. I want people to have prosperity, to be able to get on the housing ladder, to be safe on the streets of the city and that means tough on crime.

“I want businesses to thrive, so that people have got money in their pocket - not just the wealthy, but everybody.

Mayor of London Sir Sadiq Khan PA Wire “I know what I believe, and it's what I've always believed.

“That's the proposition I'm going to be putting forward and when we have done that as Conservatives, we have won and won big.”

With unemployment in London the highest in the country, he continues: “The simple truth is that we've got a Labour Government which is taxing and regulating businesses so aggressively that it's making it really hard to run a business in London.

“We've got the population of London in decline for the first time in 50 years.

“We've got a house building collapse. We've got a city where people are being priced out and and that needs to to change.”