Very significant: who is in the race to become leader of the British Conservatives? | Political news

London, United Kingdom An outspoken 44-year-old who considers Margaret Thatcher her heroine, a former immigration minister who resigned after saying the controversial Rwanda project didn't go far enough, a former soldier who joked saying he invaded a country while serving in Iraq, and a gaffe-prone Brexiteer who made a distasteful remark about a date-rape drug,

In this relative order, Conservative politicians Kemi Badenoch, Robert Jenrick, Tom Tugendhat and James Cleverly are vying in the UK for what has been called the worst job in politics: that of leader of the opposition.

The candidates will make their pitches at the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham, which began on Sunday and runs until Wednesday.

Rishi Sunak, the former prime minister, resigned as leader of the Conservatives after their disastrous performance in the July 4 general election. Priti Patel, a former home secretary and former minister Mel Stride, was knocked out in the first rounds of voting by Tory MPs.

Those lawmakers will vote Oct. 9-10 to narrow the race to two candidates. Party members, estimated at more than 170,000 people, will then vote.

What is at stake?

The stakes are high following the party's worst electoral defeat since its founding in 1834, a blow to the Conservatives who until July led the government for more than a decade.

Today, there are only 121 Conservative MPs in Parliament compared to Labor's 404 seats, down from 365 before the election.

THE [Conservative leadership] The election is extremely important and will have major consequences for the future of British politics and the country, Toby James, professor of politics and public policy at the University of East Anglia, told Al Jazeera. The new leader will have the opportunity to shape the direction of the most electorally successful party in the world.

But as they become accustomed to life in the shadows, conservatives are divided.

While some senior Tories say now is the time to appease voters who abandoned them in favor of Nigel Farage's far-right reform movement, others are talking of a return to the type of middle-of-the-road politics cultivated by the former Prime Minister David Cameron.

What went wrong for conservatives?

The final years of Conservative rule were marked by scandal and chaos as the government struggled to manage the United Kingdom's departure from the European Union and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Cameron resigned in 2016 after his bid to keep the UK in the EU failed and was replaced by Theresa May. Then come Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and finally Sunak.

The competition is difficult to predict, James said. There are now only a very small number of Conservative MPs in Parliament. A small number of votes distributed among deputies could therefore have decisive effects on the campaign.

When leadership candidates campaign to become leader, their audience is the MPs and members of the Conservative Party who are eligible to vote. When they campaign to become Prime Minister, the electorate is that of the entire country. Their first task will therefore have to be to broaden the party's appeal beyond the central base. This will require a listening exercise with public opinion to understand why the party had such a catastrophic result in July.

Who are the candidates and what are they promising?

Kemi Badenoch: culture warrior

Badenoch promises to lead and renew the Tories. According to her campaign, she believes in meritocracy and rejects attempts to force us to belong to identity groups.

Often in the headlines for addressing sensitive issues such as transgender rights and colonialism, Badenoch has been described as outspoken and has been accused of workplace bullying. Employees at the Department of Business and Commerce she led say the office was toxic, her behavior was traumatic and she played favorites, the Guardian reported. She denied the allegation.

Badenoch wants to ban so-called conversion therapy, opposes what she calls identity politics and has downplayed the role of colonialism in the UK's wealth. Margaret Thatcher, she says, is her political heroine.

At this year's British LGBT Awards, Doctor Who actor David Tennant targeted Badenoch, then equalities minister, for his stance on transgender issues. Tennant said he hoped for a world in which she no longer existed and said she should keep quiet.

Born in London to Nigerian parents, she spent her childhood in Lagos.

She became an MP in 2017 and, in 2022, made her first bid to lead the Conservative Party following Johnson's departure. She came fourth, which was considered an achievement given her relative lack of experience.

She told right-wing channel GB News last month that Britons who voted for the populist, anti-immigration Reform movement were our people, an apparent attempt to appease them, and claimed to be very right-wing but also very pragmatic.

James Cleverly: a gaffe-prone party loyalist

Former Home and Foreign Affairs Minister Cleverly, 54, was born to a Sierra Leonean mother who emigrated to London to become a midwife, a personal story he shared during his career, and an English father who worked as a surveyor.

He smartly joined the army after leaving a private school, but after injuring his leg during training, he took publishing jobs before becoming an MP.

He is a former ally of Boris Johnson, he supported Brexit and wants to relaunch the Rwandan project.abandoned by the current Labor government. The policy, heavily criticized by rights groups, would have seen people identified by the UK as undocumented migrants and refugees sent to the African country to receive asylum applications.

He is not shy about tackling topics such as racism and has warned his party against trying to make a passable impression of Farage in order to recover from the election.

He called the killing of George Floyd in the United States a terrible and unacceptable act and criticized soccer fans who booed players who took a knee during Black Lives Matter protests. He wants to win the support of the UK's black communities, but acknowledged the Tories were grappling with a divisive psychodrama.

He calls for party unity, lower taxes and increased military spending.

Cleverly has presented himself as a centrist, according to the right-wing Telegraph newspaper, and is known as an affable politician. He is popular among the public, according to a recent survey.

He is also known for his gaffes. Last year campaigners said he should resign after making a joke about spiking his wife's drink with a date rape drug.

Robert Jenrick: uncompromising ex-Minister of Immigration

In December, Jenrick, 42, left his post as immigration minister, saying the Rwandan program did not go far enough in reducing illegal immigration.

His campaign is focused on migration, including legal channels.

He warned of falling wages, high housing costs, pressure on public services and a decline in cohesion if the rate of migration of low-skilled workers continues.

Although he voted to keep the UK in the EU, analysts say he has since lurched to the right.

He is now emphasizing a call to leave the European Convention on Human Rights, a move he says will speed up the deportation of asylum seekers. He favors lower taxes and stimulating the private sector.

Now firmly anchored on the right wing of the party, Jenrick is one of the favorites in the leadership race.

In late September, he wore a hoodie with the words “Hamas is terrorist” and, according to reports, pushed for the removal of the Palestinian student visa.

Born in the English Midlands, Jenrick was educated at a private school and graduated from Cambridge. Before being elected MP in 2014, he was a lawyer and director of the prestigious Christies auction house.

Tom Tugendhat: former soldier specializing in foreign policy

As the race heats up, Tugendhat reiterated his well-known statement that the nastiest thing he ever did was invade Iraq while serving in the military.

I invaded a country once, a few years ago, in 2003; I was part of the invading army in Iraq, he told the Spectator last week, repeating the ironic remark made during the 2022 leadership race in which he had already participated and which he had lost to Liz Truss.

An Arabic speaker, he served in Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2021, while Minister of Security, he delivered a rousing speech to Parliament denouncing NATO's withdrawal from Afghanistan.

He is known as a centrist and has boasted that he has arrested more Russian and Chinese spies during his term than in previous years.

During the recent race riots, he condemned Farage for stoking tensions.

For John and Vandra Butler, retired Conservative voters in the sleepy constituency of Tonbridge in southern England, the choice is clear: their local MP should lead the Conservative Party.

He has done a lot for this area, Vandra told Al Jazeera, before acknowledging that the party suffers from leadership problems.