The floor sweepings of the Conservative Party are running to lead what remains of it after 14 years of persistent ballot-box lies resulted in its worst defeat ever.
Nominations are in to be the next leader of the UK’s Conservative and Unionist Party — the ‘Tories’ — who suffered their worst election defeat in history earlier this month. Now relegated to opposition after 14 years in power while the globalist-left Labour Party takes charge, the party has time to reflect and decide what it is for and who it hopes to represent.
Like all Conservative leadership processes in recent memory, there is a division between the two dominating wings of the party, a key part of that long running identity crisis. On one hand they have the right-centrists from the managerial, globalist faction and on the other the small-c conservatives talking about border control. But what’s more interesting, perhaps, than who is running is who isn’t. Suella Braverman, a recognisably right-wing member of the Conservatives who had been widely reckoned to be throwing her hat in the ring, announced she was pulling her candidacy last night.
Reflecting that the election result was “predicted, preventable, deserved and, as yet, unaddressed… Nigel Farage destroyed us,” hardline Brexiteer Braverman noted there’s little point in trying to lead a party that doesn’t want to hear some hard truths first. As for what went wrong, it is hard to fault her analysis, so published as an opinion piece in The Daily Telegraph:
There has been much discussion about how we suffered the worst ever result in history. But still no consensus. The disaster was down to our failure to keep promises. We did not cut immigration despite saying we would; we raised taxes to a 70-year high whilst pledging the opposite and we over-reacted to Covid which disabled our public services. We failed to tackle the long tail of Blairism contained in the Human Rights Act, Equality Act and European Convention on Human Rights, despite complaining about them. And it was on our watch that transgender ideology and critical race theory seeped into our institutions, notwithstanding our rhetoric.
So who will fill Rishi Sunak’s shoes, himself having been ‘crowned’ as Party leader without a membership ballot? While the leader of the Conservative Party may not feel like a matter of great significance now as Labour gets into its tax-hiking, culture-war stoking stride, the fact is the result does have an impact on the fortunes of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK Party, now in Parliament for the first time.
If the Conservatives admit that after years of tousling with itself over Brexit and its consequences that it really is, at heart, a centrist-globalist right-of-centre party very much like dozens of others in every European country, it can start to heal its own damage and present an honest face to the country. That also leaves a wide-open space for conservatively-minded people in the UK for Farage’s Reform UK.
Then again, the party may feel permitting the existence of a rival on territory it has traditionally considered its own fiefdom is enough of a threat to elect a more obviously right-wing leader to try and head Farage off. The endless circus of Tory Party divisions is so guaranteed another burst of life, but the Conservatives signal then they are trying to cling on to their long-loved idea of being a ‘big tent’ encompassing the whole British right.
The contenders, alphabetically, are:
Kemi Badenoch
London-born Nigeria-raised Badenoch speaks a similar game to Braverman and likewise diagnoses the disconnect between Conservative Party promises at election time and what was actually delivered in practice for the massive public distrust in the Tories. As she expresses it: “We talked right yet governed left”. She’s been active in protecting women and children from transgender ideology but her oft-expressed conservative views and belief in small government have made her plenty of enemies in this instinctively globalist party, potentially making her path towards a leadership victory difficult.
James Cleverly
Former Defence Secretary and a Royal Artillery Reserves Lieutenant Colonel, Cleverly has held ministerial or junior positions under every Prime Minister since Theresa May. Cleverly is seen as contesting for the centrist heart of the Conservative Party.
Robert Jenrick
The former immigration minister once close to Rishi Sunak, opposed Brexit, and was seen as a moderate once known unkindly as ‘Robert Generic’. Jenrick now claims to be an immigration hardliner and is vying for the right-wing of the party. The Conservative party has a rich recent history of centrists wearing the clothes of populism to gain power when opportunity knocks, and perhaps they want to be deceived again. Then again, Jenrick’s conversion while working with Suella Braverman may be sincere.
Priti Patel
Perhaps the only person running who could be claimed to be something like a household name in the UK, Priti Patel has the most governing experience of anyone standing, at least from the right of the party. Yet the problem is that, despite the tough rhetoric, migrant arrivals absolutely soared during her time as Britain’s interior minister.
Mel Stride
Who? Who? as the Duke of Wellington once famously said. Stride represents the “continuity Sunak” option and is very much of the party’s centrist-globalist wing.
Tom Tugendhat
The former Minister of State for Security, Tugendhat is a former Army Officer who served in Iraq and Afghanistan and very interested in the Ukraine war. A total centrist and socially liberal, but in a bid to broaden his appeal for this race has suggested he’d take a harder line on border control, including considering leaving the European Court of Human Rights, which has blocked British attempts to get creative with disincentivising immigration before. That doesn’t mean much though, as outgoing leader Rishi Sunak also made such noises in a bid to save his political skin, and nobody believed it then either.
The leadership process is to be a long one. The familiar rounds of voting to whittle down the list from six to two will begin in September and run through the party’s annual conference into early October, before a final ballot of members bringing a winner by Saturday November 2nd. Also watch out for what happens to Suella Braverman now she’s declined to take part in this leadership race. Farage’s Reform has made it abundantly clear she’d be welcome in their ranks — could a defection be on the cards?
