Conservative floor leaders are battling for the remaining leadership of the party after 14 years of relentless ballot box lies led to its worst defeat in history.
The nominee for the next leader of the UK’s Conservative and Unionist Party (Tory Party), which suffered its worst election defeat in its history earlier this month, has been announced. Now that the Tories have fallen into opposition after 14 years in power and the globalist left-wing Labour Party is in power, they have time to reflect and decide what the party’s purpose is and who they want to represent.
As seen in the recent Conservative leadership process, there is a division between the two major wings of the party that is a key part of its long-running identity crisis. On one side, you have the pro-management, globalist right-wing centrists, and on the other, the lowercase “c” Conservatives who talk about border control. But rather than who does run, it may be more interesting to see who doesn’t. Suella Braverman, who was widely expected to run on the right wing of the Conservatives, announced last night that she was withdrawing her candidacy.
Reflecting on the election result as “predictable, preventable, deserved and yet to be dealt with… Nigel Farage destroyed us,” Braverman, a hard-line Brexiteer, noted there was little point in trying to lead a party that wasn’t willing to hear the hard truths first. As for what went wrong, it’s hard to fault her for her analysis. Published As an opinion piece The Daily Telegraph:
There has been much discussion about the worst outcome in history, but there is no agreement yet. This disaster is because we broke our promises. We said we would cut immigration and didn’t do it. We raised taxes to the highest level in 70 years despite vowing to do the opposite, and we overreacted to Covid and crippled public services. We failed to address the long tail of Blairism contained in the Human Rights Act, the Equality Act and the European Convention on Human Rights, despite complaining about them. And despite our rhetoric, trans ideology and critical race theory have seeped into our institutions, under our watch.
So who will replace Rishi Sunak, who was “appointed” as leader without a party vote? With the Labour Party on a roll with tax hikes and stoking the culture wars, the choice of Conservative leader may not seem like a big deal, but the fact is that the outcome will affect the fate of Nigel Farage’s Reform Britain Party, which is in Parliament for the first time.
If the Conservative Party were to admit, after years of fighting about Brexit and its consequences, that it is really a centrist, centre-right party, just like dozens of other parties across Europe, it could begin to heal its own damage and present an honest picture to the country. It would also leave a wide open door for British Conservatives to see Farage’s Reform Britain.
On the other hand, the party may believe that the presence of a rival in what it has traditionally considered its own territory is threatening enough to elect a more explicitly right-wing leader to try to stop Farage.The never-ending circus of Conservative divisions is sure to roar back to life, but the Conservatives are signaling that they want to cling to their long-cherished idea of being a “big tent” that encompasses the entire British right.
The nominees, in alphabetical order, are:
Kemi Badenoch
Badenoch, who was born in London and raised in Nigeria, echoes Braverman, diagnosing the huge public distrust in the Conservative party due to the disconnect between what it promised during the election and what it actually delivered. “We said we were on the right but governed the left,” she puts it. She has been active in protecting women and children from transgender ideology, but her oft-stated conservative views and belief in small government have earned her many enemies within an instinctively globalist party, and could make her path to leadership a difficult one.
James Cleverley
Mr Cleverley, a former defence secretary and lieutenant colonel in the Royal Artillery Reserve, has served in ministerial or junior roles under every prime minister since Theresa May and is seen as a contender for the centre of the Conservative party’s centre-right wing.
Robert Jenrick
The former immigration secretary, once close to Rishi Sunak, was an opponent of Brexit and was once seen as a moderate who earned himself the notoriety of “Robert Generic”. Jenrick now describes himself as an immigration hardliner and is vying for the right wing of the party. The Conservatives have a rich recent history of centrists disguised as populists to seize power when the time is right, and perhaps they want to be duped again. But Jenrick’s shift in working with Suella Braverman may be sincere.
Priti Patel
Priti Patel, perhaps the only UK candidate with a name, has the most governing experience, at least among those on the right wing of the party. But the problem is that despite her tough rhetoric, immigration surged during her time as home secretary.
Mel Stride
Who? Who? Those are the words the Duke of Wellington once famously uttered. Stride represents the “keep it snacking” option and is very close to the centrist globalist wing of the party.
Tom Tugendhat
Tugendhat, a former Secretary of State for Security, is a former army officer who served in Iraq and Afghanistan and is very interested in the war in Ukraine. He is thoroughly centrist and socially liberal, but to broaden his support in this election he has suggested taking a tougher stance on border control, including considering withdrawing from the European Court of Human Rights, which has so far blocked Britain’s creative attempts to stop migration. But that doesn’t mean much, because outgoing leader Rishi Sunak said something similar in an attempt to stay political, and no one believed it then either.
It’s going to be a long leadership contest. The traditional balloting to whittle down the field from six to two starts in September, continues through the party’s annual conference into early October, and a final vote by party members by Saturday 2 November to decide the winner. It will also be interesting to see what happens to Suella Braverman, who has withdrawn from the leadership race; Farage’s Reform Party has made it clear she would be welcome as a member, but could she leave?
