Tom Tugendhat

Thomas Georg John Tugendhat (born 27 June 1973) is a British Conservative politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Tonbridge and Malling, later Tonbridge, since 2015. He previously served as Minister of State for Security from 2022 to 2024. Tugendhat was the chairman of the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee from 2017 to 2022. Before entering politics, he worked as a journalist and as a public relations consultant in the Middle East. He also had a part-time role as an officer in the British Army reserves, the Territorial Army; Tugendhat served in the Iraq War and the Afghanistan War.

In July 2022, Tugendhat stood in the Conservative Party leadership election, following Boris Johnson's resignation, and was eliminated in the third round of parliamentary voting. He subsequently served in the cabinets of both Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, and is currently a member of Sunak's shadow cabinet.

Early life and education
Thomas Tugendhat was born on 27 June 1973 in Westminster, the son of Sir Michael Tugendhat, a High Court judge and his French-born wife Blandine de Loisne. He is a nephew of Lord Tugendhat, a businessman, former Vice President of the European Commission and Conservative Party politician.

He was educated at St Paul's School, London, an all-boys private school, before studying theology at the University of Bristol. Tugendhat then did a Master's degree course in Islamic studies at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, and learning Arabic in Yemen. Following university, he briefly served as a journalist at the Lebanese newspaper The Daily Star.

Military career
On 6 July 2003, Tugendhat was commissioned into the Educational and Training Services Branch of the Adjutant General's Corps, Territorial Army, British Army, as a second lieutenant (on probation). His Territorial Army commission was confirmed on 16 July 2003. He transferred to the Intelligence Corps on 29 July 2003.

Tugendhat was promoted to lieutenant on 16 July 2005, captain on 1 April 2007, and to major on 1 January 2010. He became a Territorial Army lieutenant colonel in July 2013. He has been known to wear a tie associated with the Special Boat Service, prompting speculation that for part of his career he may have worked alongside them.

Tugendhat served during the Iraq War and the War in Afghanistan. He served in Afghanistan in a civilian capacity, for the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO), and helped set up the National Security Council of Afghanistan and the government in Helmand Province. He later served as one of the military assistants to the Chief of the Defence Staff.

Parliamentary career
Tugendhat was elected as the Member of Parliament for Tonbridge and Malling, a safe Conservative seat in Kent, at the 2015 United Kingdom general election. In 2013, Tugendhat was selected as the Conservative Party candidate for Tonbridge and Malling in an open primary. At the 2015 general election, Tugendhat was elected as MP for Tonbridge and Malling, winning 59.4% of the vote and a majority of 23,734. In October 2015, Tugendhat accused Iran of arming insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan. He said: "Through the Quds Force, the special forces unit of the regime's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, it has killed British troops and plotted to assassinate diplomats in Washington DC. The ayatollahs have nurtured terrorists around the world."

Tugendhat voted against Brexit, supporting continued membership of the European Union in the 2016 Brexit referendum. He voted in favour of the withdrawal agreement negotiated by Theresa May's government on each of the three occasions it was put to a vote. At the snap 2017 United Kingdom general election, Tugendhat was re-elected, increasing his share of the vote to 63.6% but seeing his majority decrease to 23,508. On 12 July 2017, Tugendhat was elected chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, becoming the youngest person to hold the post. After the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury by a nerve agent, Tugendhat said the attack was "if not an act of war ... certainly a warlike act by the Russian Federation".

In February 2018, Tugendhat praised Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. He stated: "He is rightly showing a vision for Saudi Arabia that sees her taking her place as a player in the global economy and I think that is incredibly positive, not just for Saudi Arabia, but for the world." Under Tugendhat's chairmanship the Foreign Affairs Committee focused on British foreign policy priorities after Brexit. Other significant enquiries have covered: the implications of China's growing role in the international system, the UK's relationship with India, and the Responsibility to Protect.

On 21 May 2018, the Foreign Affairs Committee published a report on Russian corruption and the UK. This drew attention to the ability of President Vladimir Putin and his allies to launder assets through London, and called on the UK Government to "show stronger political leadership in ending the flow of dirty money into the UK". The report criticised the law firm Linklaters for its unwillingness to give evidence to the committee about the nature of working in the Russian Federation at that time.

At the 2019 United Kingdom general election, Tugendhat was again re-elected, seeing his share of the vote to 62.8% but with an increased majority of 26,941. Tugendhat has "never made a secret of his ambitions to be Prime Minister one day." In January 2022, he stated he would consider running for the office of Prime Minister if Boris Johnson stood down. The following month, he suggested expelling all Russian citizens from the UK in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine subsequently clarifying that he meant "all Russian citizens connected to the Putin regime. It's not a blanket expulsion". In July 2022, Tugendhat ran in the Conservative Party leadership election, following Prime Minister Boris Johnson's resignation, and was eliminated in the third round of parliamentary voting with 31 votes. His campaign raised £120,000.

Minister of State for Security
On 6 September 2022, Tugendhat was appointed Minister of State for Security in the Home Office as part of Liz Truss's cabinet; he had supported Truss's candidacy over her rival Rishi Sunak. He was retained in this role by the Sunak government. In this role he continued taking a hawkish position on the People's Republic of China and, equally, the PRC has maintained travel bans against him. Tugendhat commissioned the National Cyber Security Centre to investigate ways that TikTok may compromise Britain's national security.

In June 2023, Tugendhat decided to join official talks with a government minister of Taiwan, breaking convention on the topic of mutual security interests. In the same month, his office announced that China had shut down its Chinese police overseas service stations in the UK, though their existence had been consistently denied by the Chinese embassy. With security within his portfolio, Tugendhat was left to decide on permitting protests during the Coronation of Charles III and Camilla, which he allowed.

In opposition
Following the Conservative Party's defeat in the 2024 United Kingdom general election and the subsequent formation of the Starmer ministry, Tugendhat was appointed Shadow Minister for Security in Rishi Sunak's caretaker Shadow Cabinet.

Tugendhat is expected to stand in the 2024 Conservative Party Leadership Election following the pending resignation of Rishi Sunak.

Conservatism
On 7 November 2018, Tugendhat gave a speech on "community conservatism" at an event organised by the Social Market Foundation. He described how his military experience had drawn him into politics and outlined several ways in which the government could encourage businesses to better serve the communities in which they operate.

Defence and foreign policy
On 29 May 2018, Tugendhat set out his own views on British foreign policy in a speech at the Royal United Services Institute. He advocated giving the FCO greater powers to determine overall foreign policy strategy. In a recorded conversation with American politician Mike Gallagher, Tugendhat gave an off-the-cuff outline of his foreign policy outlook as "trying to defend the world in which the values that matter to the people of the United Kingdom, and more particularly, the people of Kent, prosper. And those values are freedom, democracy, the ability to challenge authority and the ability to trade and travel globally."

China
In April 2020, Tugendhat founded the China Research Group alongside fellow Conservative MP Neil O'Brien. The group was formed to gain a "better understanding of China's economic ambitions and global role". This is to include Huawei's role in the UK's 5G network (see: Concerns over Chinese involvement in 5G wireless networks), China's COVID-19 disinformation campaign, and its foreign policy, in particular its relations with poorer regions of the world. Tugendhat is considered to be a China hawk in the House of Commons, alongside Bob Seely and Sir Iain Duncan Smith.

In August 2020, Tugendhat received a letter at his home address, sent from Hong Kong and containing a prayer regarding his criticism of China's policies. On Twitter, Tugendhat said that this was sent by the Chinese authorities to threaten him, though this was not independently verified. On 26 March 2021, it was announced that Tugendhat was one of five MPs to be sanctioned by China for spreading what it called "lies and disinformation" about the country. He was subsequently banned from entering China, Hong Kong and Macau, and Chinese citizens and institutions are prohibited from doing business with him. The sanctions were condemned by the Prime Minister and led the Foreign Secretary to summon the Chinese ambassador.

Israel
Tugendhat is a strong supporter of Israel. He condemned the United Nations Security Council for its official criticism of Israel's building settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories. In January 2017, he wrote that the Israeli–Palestinian conflict "doesn't matter" to the protestors of the Arab Spring, and concluded that "Why was it [Israel-Palestine] more pressing than other disputed territories such as Western Sahara, Kashmir or Tibet? It isn't. It simply deflects attention for those most in need of a diversion".

Western democracies
Tugendhat was a participant at the 30 May–2 June 2019 Bilderberg Meeting at Montreux, Switzerland, and the 2-5 June 2022 Bilderberg meeting in Washington, D.C. In the wake of the Fall of Kabul in August 2021, Tugendhat described the event in The Times as Britain's "biggest foreign policy disaster since Suez". On 18 August, in the House of Commons, Tugendhat was applauded after giving a speech that drew on his own military experiences in Afghanistan. It concluded, "This doesn't need to be defeat, but right now it damn well feels like it."

Personal life
Tugendhat holds dual British and French citizenship. His wife Anissia Morel is a lawyer and senior French civil servant.

Tugendhat is a Roman Catholic who identifies with Jewish people. His paternal grandfather was an Austrian Jewish émigré from Vienna, who converted to Roman Catholicism. Following the December 2019 general election, Tugendhat criticised the antisemitism he had faced during the campaign. He stated: "It was a campaign that wasn't always as clean as previous ones. For the first time I faced antisemitism, which I found particularly offensive and very surprising for a community like this and frankly rather distasteful. It's very un-Tonbridge, it's very un-Kent and it's very un-British. ... I would hope that type of attitude is going to leave our politics for good."

On 17 November 2022 at Westminster Magistrates' Court, Tugendhat was banned from driving for six months after he was caught driving with his mobile phone in his hand on 14 April 2022. He received six points on his licence for the offence, in addition to six he already had for two previous driving offences. He was also ordered to pay a £1,000 fine, a surcharge of £100 and costs of £110. In a written guilty plea, Tugendhat said he was holding the phone but not using it and had later taken a driving course.

Honours
In the 2010 New Year Honours, Tugendhat was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE). In July 2013, he was awarded the Volunteer Reserves Service Medal (VR) for ten years' service in the Territorial Army. Tugendhat is an Honorary Professor in the Strategy and Security Institute at the University of Exeter. He is also an Honorary Fellow of St Augustine's College of Theology. He was sworn of His Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council on 13 September 2022 at Buckingham Palace, giving him the honorific prefix "The Right Honourable" for life.