Kemi Badenoch and James Cleverly to launch Conservative leadership bids

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Kemi Badenoch and James Cleverly will formally launch their campaigns to become the next leader of the Conservatives on Monday as the main UK opposition party seeks to claw its way back from its worst election result in more than a century.

Badenoch, business secretary in the last Tory government, will pledge “renewal” with an agenda of change, while Cleverly, who was home secretary, will call for a “family-first society” and vow to “remake the argument for capitalism”.

The MPs are among six candidates vying to succeed Rishi Sunak as leader of the opposition after the devastating defeat in July’s election saw Labour win a big majority as the Conservatives shrank from 365 MPs in 2019 to 121 MPs now.

The other contenders are former immigration minister Robert Jenrick, ex-security minister Tom Tugendhat, former home secretary Dame Priti Patel and Mel Stride, who was work and pensions secretary in the last Tory government. 

Badenoch, a former associate director at private bank Coutts, was elected to parliament in 2017 and has taken an uncompromising approach to “culture war” subjects.

She remains the bookmakers’ favourite, but some opinion polls of the Tory membership suggest the race — whose winner will be announced in November — is still wide open.

At her launch, Badenoch will say that Britons “are yearning for something better, and this Labour government is not it. They have no ideas. At best they are re-announcing things we have already done. And at their worst they are clueless, irresponsible and dishonest”. 

The MP for North West Essex will criticise the government for claiming the public finances are in dire straits, placing political donors in civil service jobs and for “pretending they had no plans to cut pensioner benefits before the election”, in a reference to chancellor Rachel Reeves’s announcement of a £1.5bn reduction to winter fuel payments.

“But if the Conservatives want to become worthy of the British people’s trust again, we can’t just sit around pointing out how terrible Labour are,” she will say.

“We can’t just keep having the same policy arguments from the last parliament . . . we have to focus on renewal. The renewal of our party, our politics and our thinking.”

Meanwhile, launching his campaign, Cleverly will say that as prime minister he would slash the welfare budget to fund higher defence spending and tax cuts. 

The MP for Braintree, who was previously an entrepreneur and Territorial Army officer, will say the Tories can only claim to be the party of low taxation if they are prepared to cut public spending. 

He wants defence spending to rise to 3 per cent of GDP by 2030, compared with a previous target set by Sunak of 2.5 per cent by that time and up from 2.3 per cent now.

Cleverly will stress the need to remake the argument for capitalism and boost growth, arguing that Britain should be a “family-first society” rather than looking to government as the solution to problems.

“We accomplished much in government, but our division and behaviour obscured the victories and compounded the mistakes,” he will say. “I will tackle the problems in front of us with Conservative solutions, and make the UK the greatest power in Europe.”

In a Sunday Times interview Cleverly appeared to make a dig at Badenoch, who has said the next Tory leader must draw up a plan to overhaul the civil service. “Bad officers blame their soldiers, bad ministers blame the civil service,” he said.