Dame Priti Patel is out in the first round of the Conservative leadership contest. The former Home Secretary won just 14 votes, only two behind Mel Stride who is almost certain to be eliminated imminently as well.
Instead Robert Jenrick finished top in first round voting, with the backing of 28 MPs. That puts him six ahead of Kemi Badenoch on 22. In third place came another former front bencher, James Cleverly, on 21, with Tom Tugendhat in fourth place on 17.
Patel may be out of contention, but as a force on the Conservative ‘right’ she may find herself in a kingmaker position for other candidates, mostly notably Jenrick and Badenoch, courting not only her personal support but those of her backers.
Right now, Badenoch remains the bookies’ favourite and appears to be ahead among grassroots Tories – putting to rest any murmurings on the Labour side that Tory members are closet racists – yet Jenrick now has serious momentum as well.
Notably, both Jenrick and Tugendhat have backed an annual migration cap, whereas Badenoch and Cleverly have refused to do so. Badenoch has warned that the Tories need to understand why they previously failed to deliver on that promise before making it again, while Cleverly has said “plucking an arbitrary figure out of the air” was the wrong approach.
Cleverly will also have momentum after Wednesday’s poll since One Nation centrist MPs will be looking for a horse to back to send on to party members for the final vote. Meanwhile Patel’s unity pitch – similar to Cleverly’s – may prompt her to back the former Home and Foreign Secretary, with some of her MP backers shifting Cleverly’s way as well.
For his part, Jenrick appears to have shifted to the Right recently. In December he resigned as immigration minister, saying the government’s then-Rwanda legislation did “not go far enough”, adding “stronger protections” were needed to end “the merry-go-round of legal challenges which risk paralysing the scheme”.
At the time, Jenrick said Rishi Sunak had “moved towards my position”, but he was “unable to take the currently proposed legislation through the Commons as I do not believe it provides us with the best possible chance of success.”
This sentiment did not impress my friend and fellow traveller Ben Habib, who recently warned the Express that: “Jenrick is standing on a promise to leave the ECHR, bring down net migration to the tens of thousands, stop the boats and build more houses. These are all conservative principles but I doubt he believes in them.”
The former Reform UK deputy leader wrote: “Judge a person by the company they keep. Jenrick’s close mate was Rishi Sunak. In itself that is deeply worrying. He was Sunak’s Minister for Immigration! What he promises now is what he failed to deliver in office.”
Still, Patel and her supporters may fall behind Jenrick, however genuine or not his Damascene conversion really was. Her exit affords the Tory grandee considerable power to influence the next round of the leadership poll. At face value, the beneficiaries should be Jenrick or Badenoch, but the common unity ticket may lead Patel and her backers closer to Cleverly.
Whoever wins of course, one cannot escape the sense this will be a poisoned chalice, with all candidates – though some more than others – still heavily associated with a toxic Tory brand, and all facing the prospect of the far better-known Nigel Farage breathing down their necks and peeling votes away and towards Reform UK.
The fact Labour’s poll numbers are holding up despite gloomster speeches and talk of imminent tax hikes speaks volumes about how despised the Tories remain. Will a new leader reverse the Conservative Party‘s fortunes any time soon? Unlike betting on Labour leading Britain further towards ruination, I wouldn’t bank on it.