The Tory Leadership Race: A Gamble That Won’t Pay Off

Photo courtesy: The Conservative Party via flickr

Not to brag, but 4 months ago I bet on Robert Jenrick and Kemi Badenoch being the last two candidates in the Tory leadership election. I’ll spare you the details of how I plan to spend my millions (£43.80). But, as the 2024 Tory leadership election nears finality, we must reflect on how lacklustre and irrelevant this race appears against previous years. This fight over the leadership of the UK’s second most powerful political party has instead, frankly, resembled two bald men fighting over a comb. 

More of my expert betting advice? To be transparent, I didn’t predict Cleverly’s rise and subsequent fall, mostly because I didn't think he’d stand. As one of the most personable, experienced, and non-disgraced Tory MPs left (in fairness, the bar is on the floor here) Cleverly appeared the optimal leader for the next phase of the Tory party. One that is battling a Labour party with diminished numbers at the next election, or when Partygate and Covid Contracts are mere memories in public consciousness. As a Labour party member myself, worry struck at prospects of Cleverly being at the helm, as he could have decently rivalled the currently very unpopular Starmer. 

But my fears were quickly abated. In a turn of events that makes the current Conservative party look less cohesive than a late-stage Jenga tower, a plan surfaced to tactically vote and engineer the final two to Cleverly’s advantage massively backfired, knocking Cleverly out. 

Now we’re left with Robert Jenrick, who would struggle to pick himself out of a lineup, and Kemi Badenoch, whose “brain doesn’t switch on until midday”. Jenrick’s policies include leaving the European Court of Human Rights and has a hardline anti-immigration stance. Badenoch, the more provocative figure, fashions less concrete policies, but receives far more media coverage - mostly for her controversial and unpredictable comments. These range from railing against critical race theory to saying that maternity pay had “gone too far”. My money is on Badenoch to win. She is, at least, interesting to watch. 

Here’s the clincher though: it doesn’t matter who wins. Both candidates represent different shades of the far right of the Tory party; Jenrick pushes anti-migrant rhetoric, while Badenoch styles herself as the anti-woke warrior. But the direction that the party is leaning will not push its leader any closer to the government benches. Professor Sir John Curtice has suggested the final two Conservative leadership candidates would not be able to win over the public or unite the Right. He is spot on. 

Appealing solely to the far right and wooing Reform voters is a shortsighted and ill-conceived plan to get the Tories back into Number 10. Reform voter demographic is firstly, numerous but lacking concentration - shown by their mere 5 MPs. Secondly, less than a quarter of 2019 Conservative voters switched to Reform in 2024.These returns are not enough to rebuild the Tory party to what it once was. Finally, Farage’s rhetoric was extremely anti-establishment, anti-Westminster and anti-two-party system. For those who this resonated with, they cannot return to a party that is the very incarnation of those values. 

The party did not lose most of its seats to Reform. They lost them to Labour and the Lib Dems. Surely, in attempting to reclaim its power, they should choose to emulate the latter and not the former? Middle-class, home counties voters want a soft-spoken, classic, pair-of-safe-hands Tory, like David Cameron or Rory Stewart who focus on ‘sensible’ economics, not a controversialist centering ideology over concrete plans for growth.

Many predicted with the last general election, those who kept their seat would suffer a fate worse than those who lost. And they were right, the living now indeed envy the dead. The Tories are about to spend 5 years in the political wilderness, as any defeated government does. But chasing Reform votes, focusing on culture wars and tired right-wing rhetoric whilst refusing to address the concerns of its actual voter base (which is, in truth, middle England, not Middlesborough) will stagger themselves further into political irrelevance. Whether it’s Jenrick or Badenoch, I’d say they’ve backed the wrong horse.