One of the main reasons offered for this very long leadership contest was getting the candidates to party conference; so last week, we ran our pre-conference leadership survey to see whether or not the big event actually made a difference.
It seems to have, and the beneficiary is James Cleverly.
According to our latest survey, Robert Jenrick has lost all the ground he’d gained a week ago. Kemi Badenoch has also slipped back. Cleverly, meanwhile, has stormed ahead, picking up 12 points and comfortably taking second place in members’ first preferences. The row over the Chagos Islands, which broke out whilst the survey was open, clearly hasn’t hurt him much.
Nor is this just confined to first preferences. This survey found the first significant shift in our hypothetical head-to-heads, with the Shadow Foreign Secretary now forecast to defeat Jenrick for the first time.
Last week, Jenrick led Cleverly by 51 per cent to 37 per cent; now it’s reversed, 54 per cent to 36 per cent.
Cleverly has also all but closed the gap on Badenoch: their final-round scores are now just six points apart, whereas last week she was a full 29 points ahead. The Shadow Housing Secretary has, however, extended her lead over Jenrick from 13 points to 20.
It’s bad news for Tom Tugendhat, meanwhile, who’s first preferences are unchanged and who continues to lose every hypothetical membership vote.
We also decided to ask our panellists to tell us their second preferences, and these results cast some light on why Jenrick might be struggling. Whilst his supporters overwhelmingly back Badenoch (generally viewed as the other right-winger) as their second choice, her supporters favour Cleverly by 11 points.
How will all this weigh in the balance as MPs winnow the field down to the final two next week? As I set out before, Badenoch’s path to the membership round is precarious, for all that she seems likely to win it: there are more than enough One Nation MPs to put one of their own over the top, whilst right-wingers had no reason to defect from Jenrick.
As we enter the crucial week, that is less obviously the case. And with the margin of votes from a shrunken parliamentary party so small, even a handful of MPs changing their minds could make all the difference.
In the next few days we’ll have more from our survey on the impact of party conference and members’ views of the contest, as well as our Shadow Cabinet League Table.
