Six will become four as the candidates in the Tory leadership contest face the first round of voting on Wednesday.
The four who survive this week’s vote and a second one on 10 September will have the chance to make their pitch at Conservative Party conference. MPs will then select two candidates to go forward to the membership, with the new leader unveiled at the beginning of November.
The race is “wide open”, a senior Tory told The Guardian. There are “barely any public endorsements” so “no one can tell who is the favourite” and the “public polling has been all over the place”.
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But most MPs expect Priti Patel and Mel Stride to be the first names to fall by the wayside when MPs “whittle the candidates down to four”, said the broadsheet.
Kemi Badenoch: 6/4
The current favourite with bookmakers, Badenoch has risen rapidly through the Tory ranks to cement her place as the preferred candidate of the right-wing faction.
Having unexpectedly finished a strong fourth in the 2022 leadership race, the former banker and business secretary has become a “darling of Conservative right-wingers” thanks to her “direct approach and dedication to ‘anti-woke’ principles”, said the BBC.
Launching her campaign, Badenoch argued that calls for party unity were not enough and that the Conservatives’ “incoherent” set of policies were to blame for their election defeat. She pledged to rebuild the party by 2030 and respond to Reform UK‘s threat from the right. As she launched her campaign today, she also said the Conservatives must do more than criticise Labour in order to win the next general election.
Though she has been hailed as the future of the party “she is far from a shoo-in”, said Tom Newton Dunn in the London Evening Standard. “While she is an original and loved by the members, she can be bad-tempered and dismissive inside Westminster and is far less loved by Tory MPs.”
Also, she and the second favourite, Robert Jenrick, have “significant detractors”, said The Guardian, and both are “fishing in the same pool of voters”.
Robert Jenrick: 13/8
Once billed as “a run-of-the-mill centrist Conservative MP”, The Guardian said Robert Jenrick has “transformed into the darling of the Tory right”.
The former cabinet minister entered the race pledging to win back voters who switched to Reform UK in the general election.
Jenrick’s campaign manager, Danny Kruger, stated that Jenrick could lead the party to victory within one term.
He will “appeal to the Tory Right” because of his “tough stance on immigration”, said The Telegraph, and he has put the issue “at the centre of his pitch to the party”, pledging to leave the ECHR and “resurrect the Rwanda scheme”.
Jenrick emerged as a frontrunner for the leadership among party activists after 55% of Conservative members listed him as a top choice ahead of Badenoch and Priti Patel. He also received a boost when Neil O’Brien, a former minister, endorsed him having supported rival Kemi Badenoch two years ago.
James Cleverly: 4/1
The former home secretary was the first Conservative to officially launch a leadership campaign.
Despite some allies fearing the former foreign secretary “lacks the appetite” to succeed Sunak, citing his wife Susie’s battle with cancer as a factor, Cleverly was still “urged to stand by some centrist colleagues” as the party looks to recover from its heavy losses in the post-election period, said The Times.
Cleverly is “fishing in a similar pool” to rival Tugendhat for support among Conservative MPs, said Stephen Bush in the Financial Times. But he “starts with more credibility on the party’s right, having been one of the first in and last out of Boris Johnson’s government”.
He told Conservative Home that he has the “best combinations of skills and experience” for the role and, speaking to The Telegraph, he said he wants to abolish stamp duty on all homes as part of a wider drive to boost growth and turn “more young people into capitalists”.
Tom Tugendhat: 6/1
The former security minister threw his hat into the ring, having previously run for the leadership in 2022. The Iraq and Afghanistan war veteran is “seen as being on the moderate wing of the party”, said The Telegraph.
His campaign was denounced as over before it had even begun after the self-avowed One Nation candidate appeared to pitch to the party’s right-wing membership in a column saying he would be willing to leave the European Convention on Human Rights.
Tugendhat has previously been critical of Conservative colleagues calling for the UK to withdraw from the convention and his abrupt U-turn led to claims of political opportunism.
His reputation for quiet competency suffered a further setback after he was forced to change his campaign slogan, “Together we can, Unite the party. Rebuild trust. Defeat Labour”, after it was pointed out that its initial letters spelt Turd, The Guardian reported.
He also suffered a setback when he claimed the support of a Tory MSP who doesn’t exist, reported the BBC. His team “proudly announced” the backing of Alexander Brown MSP but later corrected it to Alexander Stewart, who represents Mid Scotland and Fife.
Priti Patel: 16/1
Badenoch’s most serious challenge from the right of the party is expected to come from former home secretary Patel. The Telegraph said that “figures from across the party wanted her to stand as a potential unifying candidate who could end the infighting and provide a credible leader of the opposition”.
To “win support” from her colleagues for a potential leadership bid, The Times reported Patel had privately ruled out striking a post-election pact with Reform UK leader Nigel Farage.
“Experience is the USP that she is putting forward”, said The Sunday Times as she officially launched her campaign last week. There have been “shrewd alliances and plum jobs, bullying allegations and headline-grabbing controversies” during her career, said the broadsheet, and “she has been as powerful as she has been polarising”.
Mel Stride: 40/1
Stride was a “close ally” of Sunak’s in the last government, and was “frequently trusted to do media interviews during the general election campaign”, said the BBC. But he only narrowly held onto his Central Devon constituency in the general election, clinging on to the seat he has held since 2010 by 61 votes.
The former work and pensions secretary, now in the shadow role, announced his candidacy by emphasising his ability to unite the party and restore its “reputation for competence”.
His team insisted he “has the numbers” to progress through the first round of voting for the Conservative leadership, said the inews site, “disputing claims” he could be one of the first two contenders to be knocked out.
Sources close Stride say that talk that he will be knocked out of the contest is part of a “spin game” by other candidates. But in a conversation with Conservative Home, Stride accepted that “there’s some profile raising to be done”.
“In fairness”, said London Playbook as it weighed up his chances, the voting “is pretty volatile now there are just 121 Tory MPs”.
