In the race to face Rishi Sunak, it may be Penny Mordaunt who capitalises on the disarray of the right of the Conservative party as it splinters into bitter factions. The trade minister has an impressively organised campaign that has led to mutterings about how much work she has put into her day job. She has racked up the second-highest number of endorsements after Sunak, dedicating time to one-on-one meetings with MPs rather than the airwaves. Her allies say she will now step up a gear and show her strengths as a media performer in the coming days. “The more people see of Penny, the more they warm to her, which is a huge advantage,” one said, a remark that may not apply to her rivals. Mordaunt’s bid has not been without hiccups. Her campaign video has been widely parodied and re-edited after complaints from several public figures featured in it. However, MPs backing her say the Brexit campaigner, who has friends across the party, has the best chance of being a unity candidate – and a break from the Johnson regime.
According to a survey of party members by the ConservativeHome website, Mordaunt is the grassroots favourite, followed closely by the former equalities minister Kemi Badenoch. Labour sources admit she is more of a threat on paper than Sunak or Liz Truss – potential candidates against whom they already have finely tuned attack messaging. “Her public profile is not high, but that can be dangerous because you get a space to make an impression which can be initially very favourable,” one source said. George Freeman, a former minister who is backing Mordaunt, said she was one of the few candidates in the race with a genuine prospect of uniting the party. “I’ve known Penny Mordaunt for 12 years, since we were elected in 2010,” he said. “She’s overcome tough hurdles in life in an inspiring life story, has got one nation Conservatism in her DNA and is a natural and proven leader.” Mordaunt is broadly popular among her Conservative colleagues, though she has alienated some specific groups of MPs in the party. The diehard Brexiter wing have not forgiven her for staying until the end in Theresa May’s cabinet as her peers voted down the deal with the EU. Steve Baker, who is running the campaign of her rival, Suella Braverman, said he had never forgiven her for that choice. “In the end, she just wasn’t there when I needed her. And actually, it’s not that I needed her. She made the wrong grand strategic call. And she didn’t fight for what she said she believed in. And now she wants my support? Well, I’m afraid she can’t have it.” She has also lost some backing from the party’s anti-Johnson wing for remaining a minister through the turmoil, when she was often rumoured to be on the brink of resignation. She wrote to constituents that Johnson had “yet to fully demonstrate” he could win back trust, but did not resign even as the prime minister haemorrhaged ministers in his final days. “That was the end of it for me,” said one MP who has been vocally critical of Johnson. Mordaunt has been making the case to MPs that she had a sense of duty to not contribute to the potential for total government collapse. Perhaps the most toxic clash has come in recent months over Mordaunt’s support for transgender rights, something she has had to effectively disavow in the early days of the campaign. Other candidates on the right (Suella Braverman) have denounced her and accused her of being behind legislation that did not refer to a “woman” giving birth, instead referring to a pregnant person. Mordaunt, who was brought up in Portsmouth, where she is now an MP, made the most impact in her early parliamentary career with her 2014 participation in ITV’s celebrity diving show, Splash! Pictures from the series have often been used in misogynist portrayals of her. The Times this week used the photographs again, alongside pictures of the male leadership contenders in suits. But Mordaunt’s big rise to public prominence came during the leave campaign, where she caused a split within the Conservative party after a controversial appearance on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, in which she incorrectly suggested Britain would not have a veto on Turkey joining the EU.
Appearing later that day, Cameron effectively accused his junior minister of lying, calling it “a very misleading claim” and said the leave campaign was trying to convince voters by saying something “that is not true”. Mordaunt entered the cabinet under Theresa May and was international development secretary and defence secretary. But her decision to back Jeremy Hunt in the 2019 contest saw her dispatched by Boris Johnson – and Hunt quit the cabinet after being offered Mordaunt’s defence secretary job, out of loyalty to her. Twice at leadership elections, Mordaunt has been rumoured to be considering a run, but there were early rumours of her determination to run to succeed Johnson and suggestions she had signed up tentative endorsements from about 50 MPs. In previous campaigns she has never backed the winner – though her endorsements of Andrea Leadsom and then Jeremy Hunt were heralded as a coup. This time, Leadsom is backing Mordaunt. It remains to be seen whether Hunt, as his second leadership campaign starts to falter, will also return the favour to his old ally.