Tory leadership race picks up pace with Priti Patel campaign launch

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Tory MPs are gearing up for the first round of voting in their party leadership contest when they return to Westminster next week, as candidates formally launch their campaigns.

Former Cabinet minister Dame Priti Patel kicked off her campaign on Friday with a promise to restore professionalism and integrity to the party, alongside a pledge to empower party activists with a greater say over candidates and policies.

She mounted an assault on Labour, which she accused of “trash talking” Britain, and vowed to take on Reform, but also said the Tories had to stop trying to be “all things to all people”.

A former home secretary, Patel defended her record on immigration, arguing that rising numbers of migrants included cohorts the public welcomed, including NHS workers who arrived during the coronavirus pandemic, Hong Kong nationals and Ukrainians fleeing war at home.

In a policy-light speech to scores of activists in Westminster, where supporters were given T-shirts and caps with her slogan “Priti: Unite to win”, she argued she could lead the party back to power at the next election, despite the Tories suffering their worst-ever defeat last month.

James Cleverly, a fellow former home secretary, and Kemi Badenoch, former business secretary, will hold formal launch events on Monday, followed by ex-security minister Tom Tugendhat on Tuesday.

Robert Jenrick, former immigration minister, unveiled his campaign with a set-piece event earlier this summer but will hold a rally on Sunday, while Mel Stride, former pensions secretary, will focus on meetings with MPs before the first vote.

A flurry of endorsements from senior Tory figures is expected over the weekend, as rival campaigns vie to boost their momentum before MPs return to the Commons on Monday following the summer recess.

The first leadership hustings will take place on Tuesday, followed by the first vote on Wednesday afternoon, when the candidate with the least support will be knocked out. The six contenders retain the right to withdraw from the contest up until Wednesday morning.

A second round of voting is scheduled for the following week to knock out another contender, meaning four candidates will attend the Conservatives’ annual conference in Birmingham at the end of September.

Tory MPs who are yet to back a candidate say the race is tough to call. A YouGov poll of Tory members last week put Badenoch as the frontrunner, followed by Tugendhat, while a Techne poll earlier in the month put Cleverly in the lead, followed by Patel.

However, polling accurate samples of Tory members has traditionally proven tricky, and the party puts little information into the public domain about the make-up of its membership base.

The bookmakers, meanwhile, make Badenoch the favourite, followed by Jenrick, then Cleverly.

The parliamentary party, which plunged from 365 MPs in 2019 to just 121 MPs in the general election last month, skews more centrist than the Tory party membership, which tilts to the right.

Party insiders say that while this means the candidates deemed most appealing to the One Nation caucus may receive a bump in the parliamentary rounds, which will narrow the field down to the final two, a more right-wing candidate is likely to win in the run-off stage, when members cast their vote.

Regardless of who triumphs, party chiefs want to ensure greater leadership stability for the winner and are examining proposals to make it harder to trigger votes of no confidence.

At present, a vote is held if 15 per cent of Conservative MPs submit a letter of no confidence in their leader to the chair of the 1922 committee, which represents the parliamentary Tory party.

New 1922 committee chair Bob Blackman told the Financial Times that the current threshold was “far too low”. Given the much smaller size of the parliamentary party, it would require just 18 MPs to begin the process of toppling the leader.

“The fact is that it’s got to be a threshold that is hard to achieve but doesn’t wound a prime minister or leader,” he said, adding that past no-confidence motions against Theresa May and Boris Johnson badly dented the political authority of both prime ministers, despite them winning the ballots.

Blackman said the party would examine proposals for a higher threshold for a sitting prime minister than a Tory leader in opposition.