Middle class parents should sign their children up to do apprenticeships instead of sending them to woke universities, a Tory leadership hopeful urged.

Tom Tugendhat vowed to make the option so attractive that families would pick the option over “three years of indoctrination on left wing views” by academics.

The shadow security minister revealed he had to warn vice chancellors that it was illegal to support Hamas during talks on how to handle protests on campuses over the Gaza conflict.

Mr Tugendhat told the Express: “Do you really want to go to university for three years of indoctrination on left wing views or do you want to have a start in life which sees you leave with a degree, with experience and without debt?”

Mr Tugendhat added: “It’s quite something that we are seeing increasing divergence between the way universities seem to view life and the way life is lived.

“When I was security minister, we got in a collection of vice chancellors to talk about various October 7 protests.

“It was quite clear that the way a few of them viewed those protests was not in keeping with the way British opinion views them.

“They were seeking to balance, one of them actually said it, two sides of an argument as they put it.

“On one side Israel, on the other side Hamas. I had to stop the vice chancellor who was saying it and make it extremely clear to them that if they did anything to allow the promotion or the toleration of terrorists sympathising views in the United Kingdom that was a criminal offence and that was not a matter of political balance.

“It is a crime to support or endorse terrorism in the United Kingdom. It is a crime to support a proscribed terrorist organisation like Hamas.”

Mr Tugendhat was a Territorial Army officer who worked on operations in Iraq and Afghanistan before becoming he military assistant to the Chief of the Defence Staff.

Instead of studying theology at the University of Bristol, he believes it would have been better to have signed up for service at 18.

He said: “I would be hugely proud if my kids went to do an apprenticeship if it was the right one for them.

“I think the mood is changing.

“In hindsight, I should have gone straight to the army at 18.”

Mr Tugendhat launched his campaign with a vow to leave the European Convention on Human Rights if it cannot be reformed.

He first raised concerns about it in 2013 over its use against soldiers on the battlefield.

“The French opt out on the battlefield,” he said. “We don’t. Why not? We should, it’s a mistake.”

Opponents of leaving the treaty suggest Sir Winston Churchill would be horrified as he was a supporter of its creation.

But Mr Tugendhat suggested the wartime leader would not stick with a system that failed the country.

“If we really can’t reform it, if it really doesn’t work then yes I am prepared to leave because there is absolutely no way I will ever put the security of the British people second to a treaty,” he said.

“Churchill gave us many fantastic legacies and Chruchill gave us many legacies that have lasted very, very well, Nato is one.

“The ECHR is one of his legacies as well. But the truth is Churchill also was a politician who understood the purpose of treaties was to serve the British people.

“When the League of Nations stopped serving Britain’s interest and we ended up in the second world war, he was one of the first to found the United Nations and one of the first to introduce Nato as a pillar of the UN, not of the League of Nations.

“When situations change then we need to change with them and the truth is that the world that Churchill designed this for was before the jet age, before mass migration, before global communications, it was in the days of Empire and not the days of the nation state as we see it today.”

Mr Tugendhat insisted he could turn around party fortunes by the next election and would be ready to lead the country from day one if they won.

“I won’t be wasting the first ten weeks like Keir Starmer has done, where all he has done is steal money off older people to pay for his union paymasters.”

He said the party has to start winning back votes from “everyone everywhere”.

“That means not just Reform and the Lib Dems, we have got to be taking that fight to Labour.

“Look at what they are already doing,” he added.

“Look at this pattern of cronyism. How is that ok? It’s not ok.

“Look at the freebies. How is that ok? It’s not ok.

“Look at the story on pensioners. They have literally taken support for people on £11,500 a year, some of the most vulnerable people who have the hardest choices to make between heating and eating and they have taken that money and they have given it to their union mates on £65,000 a year driving trains across the United Kingdom.

“This is genuinely extraordinary. If you want to know what somebody is like don’t look at what they say, look at what they do.”