This year’s Tory conference has seen a number of old faces as well as new – and the appearance of Boris Johnson’s former culture secretary at a More in Common event this evening has caused quite the stir. Nadine Dorries told delegates that her brief speech at a venue outside of the conference centre would be her only appearance at the 2024 Tory bash, labelling herself as an ‘old bird in politics’ and adding in classic Dorries style that she initially wanted to ‘turn down’ the invite. Charming…
On the leadership candidates, Dorries was pulling no punches either – especially with one contender in particular. When pressed on who she was backing to be next Tory leader, Dorries refused to settle on any one wannabe, but added pointedly:’I just know who they shouldn’t vote for at the moment.’ On a Kemi Badenoch win, the former culture secretary noted scathingly:
We all know how the [media] feel about Kemi Badenoch, don’t we? I’d be deeply concerned. I think you need to have to be non-confrontational. I think you need to have demonstrated that you were loyal when you served in government. I think if you are someone who plotted to remove a sitting prime minister, you should automatically be disqualified.
Shots fired…
And the Boris ally wasn’t finished there, shining light on Badenoch’s rivals to hammer home her point:
We have three candidates who are standing. I’m not looking at what they’re saying now – I’m looking at how they behaved in the past. They are Robert Jenrick, James Cleverly and Tom Tugendhat and all three of them put the party first before their own ambition and their self-interest. They weren’t plotters, they weren’t trying to remove a prime minister that the public had elected.
Crikey. Going on, the Boris ally continued to refer only to ‘three candidates’, insisting:
All three of them are men of integrity. They understand they’re grown ups, that they understand that if you remove sitting prime ministers who were elected with a vote share bigger than that of Tony Blair…there lies madness and lies, and defeat for the party.
I think it is impossible to serve in a government and other as a minister or as a Secretary of State, whilst at the same time you are plotting to remove the Prime Minister and planning your own ambitious career. It is impossible to do your job well if you do that, and it demonstrates to me that you have neither the integrity nor the ability to lead the party in the future. And so, you know, there are three candidates. I will be ecstatically happy if any one of those candidates become the leader of the Conservative aprty in the future, because they are not confrontational.
Although not best known for her love of unification – indeed tonight she attributed a remark to Miriam Cates, also in the crowd, that ‘one of the problems in our party is that there’s too much unity’ – this evening, Dorries made a plea to her party and, rather interestingly, Nigel Farage’s Reform. ‘We’ve got a lot of soul searching to do,’ she started, going on:
There has to be some kind of amelioration between Reform and the Conservative party. Now, I am in no way saying that Nigel Farage needs to come into the Conservative party, and I am in no way saying that we need to join together as joint… Nothing in that vein whatsoever, but we need to have a harmonious relationship with Reform because we are fighting the same enemy.
It certainly strikes a different tone from the four Tory leadership rivals – and it’s a sentiment Cates herself told those gathered that ‘I completely agree with’. Tom Tugendhat has said he doesn’t want to ‘become Reform’, Robert Jenrick has labelled the party as a ‘symptom, not a cause’, James Cleverly has branded Farage’s group as ‘Tory imitators’ and Kemi Badenoch remains in an ongoing battle with the ex-Ukip leader on social media.
And of course Mr S couldn’t quite miss the irony of Dorries’ divisive discussion at an, er, More in Common do. Some things never change…
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