Britain’s former immigration minister, Robert Jenrick, appeared to solidify his position as a leading candidate to be the Conservative party’s new leader as the four contenders to replace Rishi Sunak delivered their closing speeches at the party’s Birmingham conference.
Mr Jenrick rose to prominence after he quit Mr Sunak’s government last year in protest over its then-proposed Rwanda immigration deportation policy, which he argued was too soft.
Since then, and after Labour’s victory in the July election, he has become even more entrenched on the issue, and has made a promise to lead Britain out of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), the centrepiece of his pitch.
It went down well among most, although not all, party members in the main hall at the International Convention Centre; leaving the ECHR, which hardliners blame for frustrating deportations, remains a divisive issue among Tories as moderates argue it would damage the UK’s reputation.
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Mr Jenrick’s speech was solidly delivered without notes and his anti-immigration barbs landed well, but it lacked the warmth of the speech delivered by James Cleverly, the former foreign secretary and home secretary who has emerged this week as perhaps his main rival.
Mr Cleverly was the only one of the four candidates — the others being Tom Tugendhat and Kemi Badenoch — who spoke from a lectern. He delivered a considered, but occasionally funny and self-deprecating speech in which he urged the party to be more “optimistic”.
“Let’s be more normal,” he told assembled Tories, as he promised to unite the party amid a warning that voters would not automatically return to it as the new Labour government’s popularity waned.
Mr Cleverly insisted he was the contender who was most “feared” by the other main political parties, as he urged his party to promulgate “conservatism with a smile”.
“There is no time to lose and I don’t lose,” he said. Ms Badenoch, who gave the final speech of the conference, may yet have something to say about that.
Like Mr Jenrick before her and also Mr Tugendhat, she strode the stage and spoke without notes, an echo of the famous 2005 conference speech of David Cameron, which won him the leadership.
Ms Badenoch, who like Mr Jenrick appeals to the right of the party, is popular with members, who responded well to the attacks in her speech on Labour’s “left-wing nonsense”. However, it was unclear if her speech was the game changer she needed to hold off a challenge from Mr Cleverly to make it into the final two candidates, who will go before a vote of members over the month.
Mr Jenrick appears certain to be in the final two. Mr Cleverly is now fancied by many to join him unless Ms Badenoch can behind the scenes win over MPs, who will decide the final pairing, in the week left before the contenders are whittled down.
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