The former Conservative Party leadership candidate Rory Stewart has announced a bid to be the next Mayor of London.
Mr Stewart has said he is standing down from his seat in the Commons and has resigned from the Tory Party.
“Our leaders have become so bad at listening to the people… Instead, they have retreated to a madhouse of mutual insults in the Gothic shouting chamber of Westminster, pitting one group against another – rich against poor, London against the rest, Brexit against Remain – and all the time getting further and further away from compromise, practical solutions, and the centre group. And this is why I’ve decided to stand, not for party, but as an independent,” he writes in an open letter to the Evening Standard.
Mr Stewart has run a humanitarian foundation in Afghanistan and served in the diplomatic service in Iraq.
