Will the Tories be all Right as Jenrick and Badenoch square off?

Humza Yousaf, of course, jettisoned himself by ending the SNP’s pact with the Greens – sacking both co-leaders Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater in one fell swoop – ensuring he didn’t have the votes to survive a no confidence vote at Holyrood, duly tabled by the Scottish Conservatives.  

Humza has admitted he f***** up with that decision, but what will a fly-on-the-wall hear in the Cleverly household? 

By now reality will have sunk that he’s out of the running to be leader of the Conservative party, defeat snatched from the jaws of victory in the last round of voting on Wednesday.  

A quick recap; Cleverly went into the final vote with every political pundit predicting he’d make the final two after the elimination of fellow centrist Tom Tugendhat.  

Facing off against the right-wing candidate Robert Jenrick, and the even righter-of-right-wing candidate Kemi Badenoch, simple maths suggested former Home Secretary Cleverly would romp over the finish line.  

But that’s not what happened. It’s been suggested - though denied by both camps – that there was some horse-trading of votes going on behind the scenes on Wednesday, whereby some supporters of Cleverly backed Jenrick to ensure an easier match-up when they make their pitch to party members in the final stage of the selection process.

Tory leadership candidates, Kemi Badenoch, Robert Jenrick , James Cleverly and Tom Tugendhat. (Image: Stefan Rousseau/PA)  Jenrick, the Cleverly camp believed, was less of a threat than Kemi Badenoch, who is thought to be the favourite candidate among the rank and file.  

Yet when the final votes were tallied, James Cleverly was out of the race – gaining no votes and seeing two of his MP backers defecting to another candidate.  

“One of two things has happened,” said a Tory source. “Either a number of people lent James Cleverly their votes yesterday and rolled them back. Or James Cleverly’s lent votes to Robert Jenrick and over-egged it.”   

And now the party which was in government just a few short months ago, is facing a choice few MPS thought would be foisted upon it when Rishi Sunak stepped down – does it lurch to the right, or somersault into it?  

Whereas a contest between Cleverly and Badenoch, or Cleverly and Jenrick, could be seen as a battle for the soul of the party – the broad-ish tent of One Nation Conservatism vs a narrower, reactionary Right Wing  - what’s about to unfold between now and final vote in November is something entirely different.  

Gone are the days of David ‘hug a hoodie’ Cameron and the populism of Bors Johnston. The Conservative Party is likely heading back to being the Nasty Party, and voters are going to have to go along for the ride.  

Both Badenoch and Jenrick set out their stalls during their campaigns with the sort of appeals that make the ‘swivel-eyed loon’ brigade of Conservative Party members sit up and take notice.  

Jenrick, a former immigration minister, actually began his political journey straddling the centre ground, but shifted position when he saw which way the wind was blowing.  

He left Rishi Sunak’s government over the scheme to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda, not on the grounds that it was unjust and a waste of taxpayers’ money – but because it didn’t go far enough.  

In his resignation letter, he said "stronger protections" were needed to end "the merry-go-round of legal challenges which risk paralysing the scheme". 

The results of the vote are announced on Wednesday (Image: PA) This is a theme he’s warmed to during his leadership campaign – putting the European Court of Human Rights firmly in his sights with a vow to take Britian out of it if he ever gets his hands on the reins of power.  

During the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham this month, he said his “five stands” would include leaving the European Court of Human Rights, which he said makes it impossible to deport unauthorised migrants. 

“It is impossible, unless we leave the European Convention on Human Rights and we free ourselves from Tony Blair’s Human Rights Act,” he said. 

“These institutions are creating an arsenal of laws by which illegal entrants frustrate their removal. We have to change that.” 

He said his version of the Conservative Party would replace those laws with a new “Great Reform Act”. 

He also took aim at “mad targets, the carbon budgets” which he said were “driving the mad policies” on net zero. 

Badenoch has always been an angry voice in the party, and hasn’t been afraid to show it. A veteran of the culture wars, she awakened early to the fact the anything ‘woke’ was like a red rag to a bull for some conservative voters and has made a name for herself with her opposition to the rights of Trans people. Which is to say – the rights of people.  

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Should she win the leadership and somehow get back into No 10 Downing Street, she has pledged to change the Equality Act to rewrite the definition of biological sex, and allow organisations to bar transgender women from single-sex spaces, including hospital wards and sports events. 

Toilets have long been one of her battlegrounds. In her initial campaign to be leader back in 2022 – a contest eventually won by Liz Truss – her staff put ‘men’s’ and ‘ladies’ signs on gender-neutral loos at her launch event. 

Where people spend a penny was eventually codified into policy – with her stint as Equalities Minister seeing plans requiring public buildings to have separate male and female toilets made law.  

On the campaign trail she broadened her outlook to go after what she sees as Britian’s excessive welfare state, by saying that maternity pay was unfair on people who don’t have children, and that she’s not convinced the NHS should be 100 per cent free at the point of care. 

Speaking at the Conservative conference, she criticised “identity politics”, adding: “If you call communism environmentalism, you can close down businesses, block the roads, and stop people going to work.” 

Kemi Badenoch (Image: PA) In her pitch to Conservative activists, the North West Essex MP said she wanted to make her Labour rivals in Government “wriggle” and “sweat”, and said she was looking forward to “have fun” making the government “uncomfortable”.  

By such rhetoric does she seek to inspire her troops.  

However, whoever wins faces an almighty task. The Conservatives are reduced to just 121 MPs, and face five years in opposition before the next General Election. 

Labour’s majority stands at 157 MPs, and that’s a lot of wriggle room when it comes to passing legislation the Tories will oppose.  

It’s one thing to speak to draw up plans when hoping to win an election among Tory members, but after that the dust will settle and former cabinet ministers Jenrick and Badenoch will have to cope with both being out of power, and the uphill struggle to regain the trust of voters.  

By shifting to the right, both candidates will be hoping to claw back supporters who have gone to back Nigel Farage’s Reform Party.  

But UK elections are won from the centre ground – and seeing His Majesty’s opposition fighting political insurgents for a small slice of the electorate isn’t the sort of thing to give Prime Minister Sir Kier Starmer sleepless nights.  

In a cheeky reference to the government’s donations row, one Labour MP put the capstone on his party’s reaction to the coming Badenoch vs Jenrick showdown. 

“Does Tory leadership result need to be declared as a gift?”