Kemi Badenoch has become the sixth – and potentially last – candidate to enter the Conservative leadership race. In an op-ed for the Times published in the last hour, the Tory frontrunner launched her campaign with a promise to ‘renew by starting from first principles’.
‘We can’t control immigration until we re-confirm our belief in the nation state and the sovereign duty it has, above all else, to serve its own citizens,’ she writes. She also suggests hers will be a small state approach – arguing ‘our public services will never fully recover from the pandemic until we remember that government should do some things well, not everything badly’. Badenoch writes.Badenoch talks about 2030 as the point the Tories could return to government:
‘If I have the privilege to serve, we will speak the truth again. That is why today my campaign is launching with an explicit focus on renewing our party for 2030 – the first full year we can be back in Government and the first year of a new decade.’
It’s been clear for some time that Badenoch has ‘frontrunner’ status in the race. The bookies have long seen her as the favourite. It means there is little surprise she is standing; the bigger question is on what terms she would run. Badenoch backers say she had her nomination papers with the 1922 committee last week but chose to make no announcement at the time. ‘Her opponents have every reason to try to block her path given polling backing her – so she needs to tread carefully,’ says one ally.
I understand she plans to go long with her campaign. Scottish Tory MP Andrew Bowie is expected to be out in the media tomorrow backing Badenoch. The view is Badenoch has plenty of MP backers and this will become clearer in the coming weeks. But when it comes to the woman herself, the main thrust of the campaign is likely to come in September.
Given the length of the contest, the frontrunner is likely to keep her opponents waiting. The question is whether they can use that time to catch up.
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