At the campaign launch in London, the leadership contender aims to depict herself as a realist who can take on Labour.
Two frontrunners for Conservative Party leader have slammed their opponents’ proposals to withdraw from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) as the race for the first MP becomes increasingly heated.
Kemi Badenoch, the former commerce secretary, and James Cleverly, the former home secretary, both refused to leave the ECHR on Monday, despite requests from some of their colleagues.
The former cabinet colleagues launched their campaigns less than a mile apart in central London on the busiest day yet of the Tory leadership race, which will be reduced to five candidates on Wednesday.
Speaking at a lavish launch event in central London, Badenoch dismissed migration objectives and pledged to quit the ECHR, both of which have been promoted by her rivals Robert Jenrick and Tom Tugendhat as “easy answers.”. Many on the right of the party blame the ECHR for thwarting their efforts to send asylum seekers to Rwanda.
“We had a cap of tens of thousands when David Cameron came in,” she informed me. “We need to ask ourselves why didn’t that work, rather than just saying we’ll make another promise.”
She said, “It’s not just about tossing out numbers and targets. There is something wrong with the system. People who toss out numbers and threaten to leave the ECHR are offering you easy solutions.”
Less than an hour later, Cleverly reiterated her position, but in less confrontational terms. “The ECHR was not the body that prevented flights from taking off just before I became home secretary. The UK Supreme Court halted those flights from taking off.
He went further: “The simple fact is, if you’re trying to grab shorthand answers, quick fixes, the British people will look at us and say we’ve heard that before.”
The conversation between Badenoch and Cleverly took place the day before all six candidates for the leadership position were scheduled to meet with Conservative members of parliament in Westminster on Tuesday. There are those who are inside the campaign who believe that this will be the most important event that takes place during the early stages of the election.
Following the first elimination, which will take place on Wednesday, members of parliament will gradually reduce the number of candidates to two, and then they will give party members the opportunity to vote for the candidate of their choice.
Badenoch presented her case primarily to the right of the party, stating that the previous Tory government had “talked right but governed left.” This was in spite of the fact that she had made statements regarding migration and European human rights law.
Badenoch mentioned the execution of targets to reach net zero emissions when he was asked for an example of how the previous government had carried out governance in a manner that was comparable to that of Labour. “We all want to deliver a better environment, but creating legislation and a target without working out how we were going to do it, in my view, was trusting regulation rather than innovation,” she stated to the assembled crowd.
Badenoch addressed her engineering training, arguing that engineers are people who “see the world as it truly is.” Badenoch discussed her technical background in order to capitalise on her reputation as a politician whose bluntness some colleagues might find unpleasant.
She articulated, “I am not going to spin.” At times, I may be charming, but I believe that expressing your thoughts and feelings is the best way to make life better. The practice of politics has, for far too long, consisted of deciding what the voters want to hear and then repeating that information to others. It is a situation in which words are more successful than actions, and this must be changed.
In her talk, Badenoch brought attention to the fact that she was involved in “culture war” issues such as gender and race politics. She voiced her concern with the election of four independent members of parliament who campaigned on issues linked to Gaza, as opposed to the admittance of five members of Reform UK.
Cleverly, on the other hand, gave the impression that he was criticising Badenoch’s reputation for inciting conflicts on X/Twitter by stating, “It is quite simple to use the most inflammatory language when we are in politics.” Taking that course of action is the best approach to increasing the number of views and likes you receive on social media.
His speech was more focused on policy, and he made a commitment to raise the amount of money spent on defence to three percent of GDP and to completely do away with stamp duty. And in yet another scathing remark, this time directed at some of his predecessors in the home office, including his competitor for the leadership chair, Priti Patel, he stated, “My record has been delivery, delivery, delivery.”
“When I was at the Home Office, I perhaps broke with tradition and spent less time shouting about what frustrated me and more time dealing with the things that frustrated the British people.”