Ahead of the first round of voting in the Conservative leadership election on Wednesday, the former business secretary, Kemi Badenoch has formally launched her campaign this morning.
Addressing her supporters in front of a banner entitled ‘Renewal 2030’, Kemi Badenoch said, “We need to reboot, reset, and rewire”. Noting how the Conservatives had “ended up mired in scandal”, Kemi Badenoch took a swing at the last few Conservative leaders, saying, “We talked right but governed left. Sounding like Conservatives but acting like Labour”.
In a combative address, Ms Badenoch kept her comments in relation to Reform UK to a minimum, before going on to say that say, “I am far more worried about the five independent MPs elected on sectarian Islamist politics, alien ideas that have no place here”.
The former Home Secretary, James Cleverly also launched his campaign this lunchtime. Arguing that the Conservatives must “unite” if they wanted to be listened to by the public, Cleverly told his audience that the Conservatives must “get their act together”.
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Cleverly later went on to lay out some specific policy strands including a rise in defence spending to 3%, the resurrection of the Rwanda programme to deal with illegal immigration, and the abolition of stamp duty. Pitching himself towards the free market wing of the party, the former Home Secretary called for the state to “focus on doing fewer things very well, not everything badly”.
Amongst those publicly declared, Robert Jenrick currently leads the field with the backing of 16 MPs. Kemi Badenoch is in second place with 13 backers. Ms Badenoch also has the greatest level of support from within the shadow cabinet, so far securing the backing of Laura Trott, Claire Coutinho, Andrew Griffith and Chris Philp,
However, with over half the parliamentary party yet to declare, and a far smaller number of Conservative MPs comprising the total electorate than usual, the outcome of the race still appears very uncertain.
Amongst the other leadership contenders, Tom Tugendhat is set to officially launch his leadership campaign on Tuesday this week. Priti Patel launched her campaign late last week, with Robert Jenrick being first out the door with a campaign launch in Newark earlier in August.
Mel Stride has suggested that his campaign launch will come after this week’s ballot. This timing may though be related to the fact that Mr Stride has been tipped to come last in the first round of MP voting, and thereby be the first to be eliminated from the contest.
After this Wednesday’s ballot, Conservative MPs will then whittle down the list from 5 to 4 candidates in a subsequent ballot on Tuesday next week. The four remaining candidates will then go forward to a hustings event at the Conservative Party conference before MPs reduce the final number of candidates from 4 to 2 in early October.
Conservative Party members will then vote on which of the two remaining candidates they prefer with the result announced on November 2nd.
