BIRMINGHAM – The four contenders to lead Britain’s Conservative Party took turns in the spotlight on Wednesday, each claiming to be the one who can lead the right-of-center party back from a catastrophic election defeat.
Former Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick, ex-Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch, former Foreign Secretary James Cleverly and ex-Security Minister Tom Tugendhat each made impassioned speeches aimed at persuading party members that they have what it takes to turn around public opinion, trounce the Labour Party of Prime Minister Keir Starmer and return the Conservatives to power at the next election, due by 2029.
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That’s a tall order. After years of division, scandal and economic tumult, U.K. voters comprehensively rejected the Tories in a July election, leaving the party that had governed since 2010 with just 121 seats in the 650-seat House of Commons. The center-left Labour Party won more than 400.
Jenrick, a former centrist who has shifted to the right with tough talk on migration, and the energetic libertarian Badenoch are considered the front-runners, though Cleverly's upbeat appeal for unity went down well with delegates in the auditorium.
An initial field of six candidates was whittled down by Conservative lawmakers to four before the conference. Legislators will eliminate two more in voting next week. Party members across the country will then vote to pick a winner, who will be announced Nov. 2.
The candidates agreed that they want a smaller state and a more vibrant economy and that they all revere the late Margaret Thatcher, whose 11 years in power transformed the U.K. They differed on how far to emulate Reform U.K., the hard-right, anti-immigrant party led by populist politician Nigel Farage.
Though Reform won only five seats in the election, it came second in many more, and its rapid rise has scared some Conservatives into moving to the right.
Jenrick leaned furthest towards embracing Reform, saying Britain needed a “New Conservative Party” — an echo of the “New Labour” project that returned that party to power under Tony Blair in the 1990s. He pledged to take Britain out of the European Court of Human Rights, scrap the U.K.’s own Human Rights Act, end mass migration, abolish carbon-emissions targets and “stand for our nation and our culture, our identity and our way of life.”
Nigeria-raised Badenoch cast herself as a fearless truth-teller, declaring that “the system is broken,” arguing for a low-tax, free-market economy and pledging to “rewire, reboot and reprogram" the British state.
"In government, we did not always keep our promises," she said. "We promised to lower taxes, they went up. We promised to lower immigration, it went up. "
Cleverly, who comes from a centrist section of the party, said there would be “no mergers, no deals” with Reform if he won. He warned that the party must not “wallow in self-pity” or veer to extremes.
He also struck a note of humility, arguing that the party let the electorate down. Before the Conservative Party can reboot, he said, “there’s something we need to say: Sorry."
“Let’s be more normal,” said Cleverly, who urged Conservatives to emulate the optimism of “my political hero,” Ronald Reagan.
Tugendhat, widely seen as a longshot, accused his higher-profile rivals of a “lack of substance … petty point scoring, and self-service” and said his past as a soldier gave him the leadership qualities to “reconnect with the British people … restore trust … win again.”
Delegate Belinda Williams said that she went into the speeches with an open mind and came out backing Cleverly.
“Such passion,” she said. “He came out with some fantastic ideas.”
Another party member, Steven Stanbury, thought Badenoch had best diagnosed “what went wrong” for the party.
“We said one thing and we failed total and utterly to deliver,” he said.
The slogan of the four-day conference in the central English city of Birmingham was the subdued “review and rebuild.” But the leadership contest gave the event something of the buzz of a U.S. convention, with huge banners bearing the candidates’ faces, and branded merchandise including giant foam fingers for Tugendhat, “We want Bobby J” baseball caps for Jenrick and T-shirts urging people to “Be more Kemi.”
Though all the candidates took potshots at Labour, the party’s time-consuming leadership contest has weakened its ability to capitalize on the new government’s missteps. Starmer’s personal approval rating has plunged amid his gloomy pronouncements about the economy and revelations about his acceptance of freebies from a wealthy Labour donor.
Keiran Pedley, director of U.K. politics at pollster Ipsos, said the Conservative Party “faces an uphill battle” whoever leads it.
In an Ipsos poll released Tuesday, 64% of respondents said they didn’t care who became Conservative leader, while 31% said they cared a great deal or a fair amount. The pollster surveyed 1,100 British adults and the margin of error is plus or minus three percentage points.
“The public is largely indifferent to the leadership race, and the candidates are relatively unknown,” Pedley said.