Rishi Sunak has been urged to stay on as Conservative leader until November amid divisions within the party over how long the contest to replace him should take.

Shadow foreign secretary Andrew Mitchell said the former prime minister’s instinct “is almost certainly to go” but more time was needed for potential successors to make their case.

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The view is at odds with other senior figures who fear a protracted contest would leave a vacuum for Labour and Reform UK to capitalise on.

Mr Mitchell told Times Radio on Monday: “An interim leader is not, in my view, the best option.

“The best option is to seek to persuade Rishi to remain. It’s not an enormously long time in the scope of things. It’s probably ’til mid to end November.”

He added: “I think his instinct is almost certainly to go. I hope that he won’t.”

Mr Mitchell said the Conservative Party conference at the end of September would be a good time for “a debate to take place” about who should take over the party.

He pointed to the example of Michael Howard, who delayed his departure as Conservative leader for six months after an election defeat in 2005.

Mr Howard was eventually replaced by David Cameron, who won the next two elections.

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“I think we should play it long,” Mr Mitchell said.

“Following the very significant defeat of the Conservative Party, we need to adopt a modest profile in this respect.

“I would expect also that the party conference, when people will have a look at what the Conservative Party is then saying, is the right time for this debate to take place.”

He added: “I very much hope that what the party will decide to do is to mirror what Michael Howard did in 2005 and allow the party conference the space for candidates who are offering themselves to say what they would do… Members of Parliament can then take a view as a result of that showcasing.”

The Conservatives were reduced to just 121 MPs at the general election, their worst result in history.

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Mr Sunak accepted responsibility for the scale of the defeat and said he would step down as Tory leader once the formal arrangements for choosing his successor were in place.

The rules and timeline will be decided by the 1922 Committee of backbench MPs, who elected their new chairman last week.

While several Tory MPs have called for a period of self-reflection before choosing a successor, others fear this could be even more damaging to the party’s public perception.

Long contest risks ‘turning off the public even more’

Should the contest drag on, Mr Sunak may be unwilling to stay, forcing the party to appoint another leader in the interim.

Lord Houchen, the Tory mayor of Tees Valley, has said the party should not “navel gaze for too long”, suggesting it would “turn off the public even more”.

He told the BBC a protracted contest “feeds into that perception that we’re more concerned about the ongoings of the Conservative Party rather than what the public care about, which is: how do we help improve their lives”.

No candidate is yet to officially declare they will run for the Tory leadership.

Those believed to be preparing bids include shadow communities secretary Kemi Badenoch, shadow home secretary James Cleverly, former ministers Suella Braverman and Robert Jenrick, and Tom Tugendhat, the shadow security minister.

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