I’ve been too diffident about my achievements – James Cleverly

Cleverly’s three leadership rivals all have ministerial experience.

Robert Jenrick, a former immigration minister, currently has the most support from Conservative MPs, followed by former business secretary Kemi Badenoch.

Cleverly is tied in third place with former security minister Tom Tugendhat after two rounds of voting by Tory MPs.

The four contenders will make their case to replace Rishi Sunak as party leader at the Conservative conference in Birmingham at the end of this month.

They will then be whittled down to two by Tory MPs, with the party membership getting the final say in a ballot.

In a wide-ranging interview with Nick Robinson, Cleverly also spoke about his experiences of being mixed-race in 1970s South London, when National Front marches were taking place.

“That was the backdrop of my childhood,” he said, but “colour and race” was “just not a thing” for his own children and their friends.

“One of the things I love about this country and I think we underplay it, is that we have we have always been actually one of the most open and generous countries.”

But he also argued that the country had gone backwards when it came to integration.

He said his mother, who came to the UK from West Africa in 1966 to work as an NHS midwife, “did not feel she had to integrate because for her, this was coming home”.

Because Sierra Leone was run as a British colony until 1961, Cleverly said his mother’s attitude to British institutions “and its rules came hard-coded when she arrived”.

“We used to be really good at integration and we dropped the ball on that,” Cleverly said.

The root of the problem lies in the inconsistent application of the UK’s laws, he claimed.

“All institutions of the state should discharge their duty even-handedly and without fear or favour.”