The former home secretary James Cleverly has seized the momentum in the Conservative leadership contest, calling on his party to be “more normal” after a tumultuous few days for his two main rivals, Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick. In a speech on the final day of the Tory conference in which he apologised to the membership and the country for the failings of the parliamentary party, he said victory would come again when the Conservatives were “enthusiastic, relatable, positive, optimistic – let’s be more normal”. After days of difficult headlines, Badenoch, the shadow housing secretary, received a rapturous reception in the hall for her attacks on net zero and identity politics. She closed the conference in Birmingham on Wednesday with a speech taking on her critics and promising to “tell the truth”. The former business secretary said: “I grew up in a place where fear was everywhere. Listening as you hear your neighbours scream, as they are being burgled and beaten … When you’ve experienced that kind of fear, you’re not worried about being attacked on Twitter.”
The odds on Cleverly reaching the final two in the members’ vote have shortened dramatically over the course of the past 48 hours – though the choice of which two out of the four will be in the hands of Conservative MPs next week. Both Badenoch and Jenrick used their speeches to hammer home their rightwing credentials, on the environment, gender and diversity. Both also voiced their outrage at the treatment of a Batley teacher who showed a cartoon of the prophet Muhammad.
Badenoch has faced criticism for comments she made on maternity pay being “excessive” and criticising civil servants, while Jenrick was censured by former defence secretaries and fellow leadership candidate Tom Tugendhat for claiming special forces were shooting terrorists rather than detaining them because of fears over European law. Channelling Tony Blair’s New Labour, Jenrick promised to create a New Conservatives. “We will be tolerant, but we will stand for never tolerating any of this, ever again,” he told the conference hall. Badenoch opened her speech by saying it was “time to tell the truth” and said she had “seen the system from the inside and the system is broken”. She said she had been fighting identity politics “all my career” and drew cheers as she said “the stealthy poisoning of our society needs to stop”. “Some people say I like a fight. I can’t imagine where they got that idea,” she said. “But it’s not true. I do not like to fight. But I’m not afraid to fight. I don’t fight for the sake of fighting but I do fight for you!” In his speech, Cleverly took veiled swipes at the weaknesses of his rivals. In remarks that echoed Gordon Brown’s “no time for a novice” speech, he drew on his time as home secretary and foreign secretary as he compared his experience with that of his rivals. “I know in detail what the government should be doing right now. I know in detail how they’re failing. Now is not the time for an apprentice.” In a dig aimed at Badenoch, who has accused the media repeatedly of misquoting her, Cleverly said: “Choose someone who you know and who is tested and who doesn’t hide from the media.” The biggest cheer came when Cleverly ruled out any cooperation with Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party. “Mark my words, we will beat Reform by being the best version of ourselves, not a pale version of anyone else. So no mergers, no deals.” In his speech, Tugendhat drew on his record in the military and as security minister. “ I’m not here to manage. I’m here to lead.” Although Tugendhat said he would impose a cap on net migration and would consider leaving the European convention on human rights, he said the issues were not that straightforward. “This is about visas, not about foreign courts,” he said. “Let me tell you something that my opponents probably won’t: this isn’t simple.” One ally of Tugendhat said afterwards that he “lacked some of the spark that Cleverly had, which was a shame”. Outside the conference hall, the leadership campaign began to turn ugly as officials for different candidates briefed openly against their rivals. One described Cleverly’s speech as “that of a party chair not a leader … a bit Comical Ali”. The MP Jesse Norman, a prominent Badenoch backer, called Jenrick’s speech “dreadful ... It said some things that are fundamentally either untrue or grossly oversimplified”. All the candidates spent time talking to the press afterwards apart from Badenoch, who was swept out of the conference hall by her aides immediately after she finished speaking.