The Tories need to show they have something fresh to offer – and Kemi may be just the woman to do it

A black African woman leading the oldest political party in the world would be a sight for sore eyes

Charles Moore, 21 October 2024 11:09am BST

Party members have just received their ballot papers in the Conservative leadership election. We shall know the result of their decisions on Saturday week.

In my own coverage of this contest, I have broken all the rules of good commentary. I have been reluctant to get in first and unwilling to perceive either triumph or disaster, heroes or villains. Beyond suggesting that James Cleverly was overrated and Tom Tugendhat was underrated, I have felt unwilling to pass any overall judgment on individual candidates. I apologise to readers who find this an unexciting form of journalism.

The problem is that one has very little to go on. This may seem a strange thing to say after the candidates have been appearing on scores of platforms for three months, but there remains a huge gap between what any candidate, however brilliant, can say, and what he/she can be expected to achieve.

Although Sir Keir Starmer is working hard to fritter away his own party’s vast majority, it remains overwhelmingly likely that we shall not have another general election for at least four years. This turned out to be true in the last great Conservative rethink after Margaret Thatcher won the leadership in February 1975, but she did not know that then. She was taking on a Labour government with a tiny overall majority and so had to be ready for a general election at any time.

Next month’s winner will have the unwelcome luxury of a long wait. So one should be suspicious of extravagant claims for or by any candidate: they may never be proved in action. One should also fight shy of cast-iron policy commitments. A specific promise made by someone in no position to fulfil it is nothing more than what Sir Keir would call a sausage to fortune.  

My final reason why no decision can be very definite is that the Conservative Party, though certainly demoralised, is no longer deeply split. Since the defenestration of Mrs Thatcher in November 1990, it has been divided by bad blood over the manner of her fall and by the issue of Europe. Scars remain, but it is a mistake to try to identify any candidate as adhering to the true path or representing the Devil incarnate.

The right leader will need strong beliefs and the power to express them, but modern Conservatism should have no 39 Articles to which supporters must swear allegiance. There can be no overwhelming case for any candidate at this time.  

Due, in part, to comical miscalculations by Conservative MPs in their final round of voting, the two remaining candidates come from the Right of the party.

Although originating in the Centre, Robert Jenrick is now the more programmatically Right-wing of the two. This may be because his time as immigration minister convinced him of the fundamental uselessness of Tory policy on the subject. He became angry at his party’s promises which could not, in the present state of the law, be kept. The iron entered his soul.

Emotionally, therefore, Mr Jenrick is close to the sort of voter who defected to Reform. While in office, he came to realise he was thinking what they were thinking. He can therefore claim that he would be the sort of Tory leader who could win such people back. His policy positions on several subjects during this campaign reflect this. His most specific one – the shibboleth he wants to set up – is that Britain should withdraw from the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights. Even his support for fewer housebuilding restrictions is closer to Reform voters who feel excluded by current house prices than to true-blue Tory southerners who are obsessed with protecting what they have.

It is to Mr Jenrick’s credit that, in his tone, he has almost always avoided Faragiste point-scoring. He puts forward tough policies calmly and reasonably. Kemi Badenoch’s views are not so different, but her approach is. Rather than advancing within the Tory tribe and using the language that tribe recognises, she speaks as an outsider. Here is someone, she suggests, who learnt her conservatism in a cold climate and could almost say she has worked it out for herself.

For her, it is less a matter of party, more a set of beliefs. Because of her ethnic background, she has had direct encounters with the hostile ideologies that divide Britain (and other Western countries) through identity and sexual politics which set people against one another and weaken families. She has an immigrant patriotism for this country, an emotion often underrated by those of us brought up here. Her memorable striking eloquence comes from this.

In terms of personality, Mr Jenrick is coolheaded (and therefore potentially unresonant with the public), and Mrs Badenoch is fiery (and therefore potentially troublesome).

Having no vote in this contest (I am a non-affiliated peer), I look at it with some detachment. I would say it would be unwise to overlook the obvious. A black African woman leading the oldest political party in the world would be a sight for sore eyes. The Left’s cant phrase in relation to racism – “lived experience” – would come back to bite them. Sir Keir, never eloquent, would be lost for words.

A Badenoch leadership would undoubtedly make a difference and start something new. A Jenrick one might guarantee a quieter life within the Conservative Party but would surely make less impact on the nation. It feels as though the greater risk will reap the greater reward.  

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