With the announcement deadline closing yesterday, the new leader of the Conservative Party will be one of six candidates. With the most diverse field of plausible candidates in recent memory, this leadership election will decide the direction of the Conservatives following their landslide defeat. Here’s what to know about the candidates:
James Cleverly
Considered to be the main centrist candidate, Cleverly has called for a โBroadchurchโ party. Cleverly has centered his pitch on electability, stating last week that โThe Conservatives exist to governโ. Blaming the 2024 defeat on โself-indulgent infightingโ, he has called for “discipline” to prevent a divided party from costing them the election again.
Cleverly was appointed foreign secretary under Liz Truss, before serving as Home Secretary following Bravermanโs dismissal for the final year of Sunakโs premiership.
His position as home secretary is likely a particular weakness given the role that immigration played in the election loss and its importance among members. Although none of the candidates have openly supported the party joining with Reform, Cleverly was the first candidate to explicitly reject a merger. With 47% of Conservative members supporting a merger, this lack of ambiguity could potentially be more of a weakness than a strength.
With the belief that Conservative Cleverly is tainted by his frontline role during the monthโs election defeat perhaps more than most of his colleagues. On his campaign website, only one piece of experience is mentioned by name, his role as Party Chairman in 2019 โwhen we won an 80-seat majorityโ.
The legacy of the last election will undoubtedly be a significant issue in this leadership election. Right wing candidates such as Robert Jenrick and Priti Patel will likely use their distance from the defeat to argue that the moderation of frontbenchers like Cleverly were responsible for the defeat.
Mel Stride
Besides Cleverly, Stride is the other main centrist candidate. Opposing a merger earlier today, Stride is one of three candidates to do so. Stride has stated that โthe centre really mattersโ in building a winning coalition for the next election, stating that he would help create an โinclusive, one nationโ party.
As Work and Pensions secretary, Stride expressed concern regarding the sustainability of โtriple lockโ on state pensions in 2023. The Triple Lock ensures that state pensions rise by the highest of three values: inflation, earnings growth or 2.5%. This claim has been backed up by the IFS. Analysis by the economic Observatory stated that “it would be more honest for politicians to be explicit with the electorate that continuing with the triple lock needs to be paid for with higher taxes”.
Given that Conservative members are disproportionately older, he is unlikely to be rewarded for his honesty.
Whilst no poll of conservative membership has yet been done which includes Stride, Stride is generally unfavoured to win.
Kemi Badenoch
Kemi Badenoch is generally considered to be the frontrunner for leadership. With her tagline of โRenewal 2030โ, a year that she claims will be the first year of a new conservative government, Badenoch claims that she will โrenewโ the party so that itโs ready for government.
As part of her โrenewalโ, her leadership announcement called for the party to โrenew by starting from first principlesโ. Her proposed โrenewalโ has focused on two aspects. Firstly, she has advocated for a smaller government, arguing that the state should do โsome things well, not everything badlyโ. Secondly, she has emphasised border, stating that we โcanโt control immigration until we re-confirm our belief in the nation stateโ.
Despite describing herself as being on the โliberal wingโ of the Party, Badenoch is considered to be on the right by most observers. In her role as Equalities Minister, she has taken a decidedly conservative position on almost all social issues. In 2021 she defended the governmentโs Racial Disparities report commissioned in the aftermath of the BLM protests, accusing critics of being โracial gatekeepersโ. The report, which rejected the concept of institutional racism, was characterised by UN experts as helping โnormalise white supremacyโ.
Although publicly supporting the partyโs position on gay marriage, Badenoch abstained from the parliamentary vote to extend same-sex marriage to northern Ireland, with a 2021 audio leak showing her mocking gay marriage in 2018. Additionally, Badenoch has taken a hardline stand on trans issues culminating in a public row with David Tennant last month.
However, there exist those to the right of Badenoch who oppose her. Former culture secretary Nadine Dorries claimed in her book โThe Plotโ that Badenoch was an integral part of โThe Movementโ an alleged secret organisation that controls the Conservative Party. Despite Badenoch receiving death threats due to the claim, Dorries repeated this claim following the close of nominations.
Less unhinged members of the conservative right also take objection to Badenoch. In a leaked post-election shadow cabinet meeting, Badenoch described Suella Braverman as having a โvery public nervous breakdownโ. Suella Braverman has since implied that Badenoch herself was behind the leak, whereas an anonymous shadow minister has said so explicitly.
Whilst potentially alienating the most rightward wing of the party, the leaking of Kemi Badenochโs opposition to hardline elements could be designed to make her more palatable to moderate conservative members turned off by her social conservatism.
Priti Patel
Former Home Secretary Priti Patel has generally been seen as a leading figure in the right of the party.
With this position, Patelโs campaign so far has focused on appealing to more moderate conservatives. Although making clear that she will support her base with proposals such as giving more power to the โheroicโ membership, she has framed even this as a way of โtaking onโ Reform UK.
Unlike Suella Braverman, who failed to get the necessary number of MPs, Priti Patel has not called for a deal with Reform. Instead, Patel ally Jonathon Gullis has argued that Patel is โfeared the mostโ of all the candidates by Nigel Farage. Although this claim is dampened slightly by a recording showing her dancing with Farage at the last party conference as well as โtalking pintsโ with Reformโs leader on GB News, proponents argue that these connections are what make her such a threat.
It is claimed that her appeal to the right would weaken reform rather than strengthen it by winning over wayward Reform voters. Her article emphasising โparty unityโ to the telegraph put regaining the trust of membership as central to that. In addition to endearing herself to the membership that will decide the runoff, her framing is likely designed to convince MPs that an olive branch to the membership is required to prevent the party from collapsing.
However, whatever appeal to the membership she might have, her claims of winning back Reform voters seems dubious. Polling by Ipsos showed that Patel has the lowest polling of any potential leadership candidate. Overseeing record net-migration, Patel has impressively maneuvered herself into a situation in which she is hated by the center and the left for being too hard on immigration, whilst disliked by the hard right for being ineffective.
Tom Tugendhat
Presiding over one of few areas in which the conservative government is perceived to have done well, Tugendhat has consistently polled in second place to Kemi Badenoch. Tugendhat is generally considered to be a centrist, one nation conservative. However, in an increasingly right-wing party, Tugendhat is trying to rebrand, so far with limited success.
Following his leadership announcement, Tom stated in an interview on Sky News that he would support leaving the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) if it โdoesnโt serve our interestsโ. This is a reversal of his previous position. The sudden pivot to the right was quickly denounced by right-wing media. Tugendhatโs tacking to the right will likely damage him by moving the debate away from issues in which he is popular.
Robert Jenrick
Robert Jenrick stands as Patelโs greatest challenger on immigration. Jenrick was appointed Immigration Minister in October 2022 until his resignation in December of last year. Alongside Cleverly and Stride, Jenrick is the second candidate to reject a deal with Reform. Internal sources within Reform claim that Jenrick, rather than Patel, is considered the greatest threat to the party.
Another advantage Jenrick has over his right-wing opponent is his distance from the governmentโs perceived failure on immigration among party members. Priti Patel has received criticism from more hardline elements of the party for her alleged responsibility in the failure to reduce immigration. In contrast Jenrickโs resignation, explicitly on the basis that the governmentโs approach to immigration was โfatally flawedโ positions him well for this election.
With Jenrickโs comparatively junior position in the home office, his claim of forcing the Prime Minister to โmove towards my positionโ, but being unable to reform the system could be seen as more credible by immigration-centric voters.
Simultaneously, however, his resignation represents the โself-indulgent infightingโ highlighted by James Cleverly as the reason for Conservative defeat.
Final Thought
Rather than ideology, the Conservative leadership battle has so far been fought over electability. This however, is unlikely to last forever. Candidates are currently competing for endorsement by Conservative MPs, rather than the party membership as a whole. As we approach the membership vote in October, this is likely to change.
Already we can see ideological battles between conservative candidates. Although framed in the language of electability, criticism of the previous governmentโs record is beginning to pivot to attacks against the other candidates. With such strong ideological divisions in the party, whoever is announced in November will have the difficult task of uniting a heavily divided party.
For more of Chamber UKโs analysis of the Conservative Party please click here.