A veteran Conservative MP has sparked outrage after saying he would not support Kemi Badenoch to be the Tory party leader because she is “preoccupied with her own children”. Sir Christopher Chope told ITV News that the frontrunner in his party’s leadership race would be unable to commit to the role of leader of the opposition as she has young children. Chope said he would support Badenoch’s opponent, the former immigration minister Robert Jenrick, adding: “I myself am supporting Robert Jenrick because I think he’s brought more energy and commitment to the campaign, and being leader of the opposition is a really demanding job. “Much as I like Kemi, I think she’s preoccupied with her own children, quite understandably. I think Robert’s children are a bit older, and I think that it’s important that whoever leads the opposition has got an immense amount of time and energy.” Both candidates have three children. Badenoch’s youngest is five and Jenrick’s is eight.
Chope’s comments were quickly condemned by members of the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties, with Jenrick also distancing himself from them. Liz Jarvis, the Liberal Democrat MP, tweeted: “Diminishing women’s ability to play leading roles in public life because they have young families is an attitude that should be in the distant past.” Helena Dollimore, a Labour backbencher, posted: “I thought nothing could shock me about the state of the Conservative party, but that was before I had to sit through Christopher Chope MP opining about whether mothers can lead political parties.” Her Labour colleague Stella Creasy added: “This is why we urgently need paternity leave sorted. Because until people start wondering if dads get distracted by their kids as much as they do mums, we will always have dinosaurs walk amongst us … or in this case on the modernisation committee in parliament …” A spokesperson for Jenrick also disowned Chope’s comments, saying: “Rob doesn’t agree with this. He’s raising three young daughters himself.” Badenoch, who herself attracted criticism after appearing to suggest maternity pay was “excessive”, is the current favourite in the Tory leadership election and will go head-to-head with Jenrick in a televised event on GB News on Thursday evening.
Chope denied his comments related to Badenoch being a woman. Speaking later in the day to Times Radio, he insisted they were justified. “I repeat the point which I was making before, and that is that Kemi has got a young family and so it’s less likely that she’s going to be able to spend as much time as is required as somebody who hasn’t got the commitments of a young family,” he said. “Now, that’s not suggesting she’s unsuited or anything like that to be the leader of the opposition. And I just think there’s a lot of mischief-making going on here. “All I’m saying is that one of the candidates has got a younger family than the other one. And has also got a record of wanting to spend more time with her family than engage in going to far-flung constituencies.” There was widespread anger over misogyny in politics this summer after it emerged that the US Republican vice-presidential nominee JD Vance had launched an attack on “childless cat ladies”. In 2016, the Conservative party leadership candidate Andrea Leadsom pulled out of the race after she appeared to suggest that being a mother gave her an advantage over her rival Theresa May, who had no children. Three years earlier, the Ukip politician Godfrey Bloom sparked controversy by saying that a room debating women in politics was “full of sluts” after two of his colleagues admitted they did not clean behind their fridge.