In recent years, the Conservative party conference has become something of an irrelevance. Often it is little more than a networking event, filled with dull speeches, all carefully stage-managed by No. 10. But next week’s gathering in Birmingham will be one of those rare Tory conferences that decide the party’s future.
The leadership race has gone on for so long that the conference will be a political talent contest, with the four remaining leadership candidates – Kemi Badenoch, Tom Tugendhat, James Cleverly and Robert Jenrick – setting out their stalls. ‘We know each other’s lines so well now that we could imitate each other,’ says one leadership contestant. ‘There is definite growing regret that it’s taking so long,’ says a member of the shadow cabinet. ‘We were too indulgent to MPs who wanted to have a break over the summer.’
It was another mistake, perhaps, to give the instruction, for the sake of unity, that candidates shouldn’t land blows on each other. ‘We’ve literally been told one of the questions in the official conference Q and A could be “What are your favourite crisps?”’ complains a campaign member. Bob Blackman, the chairman of the 1922 committee, has brought in a ‘yellow card scheme’ whereby any blue-on-blue attacks will lead to public condemnation of those involved. ‘But we should be allowed to criticise each other, otherwise we are painting over the cracks,’ says one MP. ‘An opposition leader should be tested on their ability to oppose.’
The teams are going heavy on merchandise: Badenoch badges, TugendHATs, Cleverly T-shirts
Although the contest will drag on into November, the result could be obvious much sooner, once MPs choose the final two candidates. ‘It’s the most important week of the whole leadership campaign,’ explains a party old hand.
Tory MPs and party members view each other with growing suspicion. Many in Westminster worry that the membership has been reduced to a small cohort of ideologues whose priorities are out of sync with the rest of the country, while activists worry that the MPs are too caught up in their own feuds and power games to back the leader who is most likely to lead a successful general election campaign. The conference at least brings these two groups together.
All of the candidates want to show their popularity among party members, which means the size of the queues for the speeches and fringe events could matter more than what’s said. There’s been some talk of guerrilla tactics – stunts such as activists flooding the hall for their candidate’s speech and then leaving the room (or even pretending to fall asleep) when the others start speaking.
Since the contest’s talking points are now well-established, the scales could be tipped arbitrarily. Leadership campaign staff were recently asked to pick envelopes at random. Inside were various running orders for the conference: who will get to go last with their leader’s speech; who has the best positioned stall to woo activists. Badenoch won on the former, Cleverly on the latter.
This will be the third time in the party’s history that the conference has been used to find a leader. Today’s Tories are trying to learn from old mistakes. In 1963, when Harold Macmillan’s resignation was announced during the conference, it quickly descended into a leadership parade even though there was no formal leadership election. Looking a little too eager was perilous. Lord Hailsham fell foul of party opinion when his supporter Randolph Churchill dashed to Blackpool and started dishing out ‘Q for Quintin’ buttons – including to Rab Butler, who had ambitions of his own. In the end, it was Alec Douglas-Home who won the widest support.
In 2005, David Cameron entered conference as the underdog candidate. It was widely assumed that he would be steamrollered by David Davis. But a plodding speech by Davis, which was trumped by a lively 18-minute walk-and-talk by Cameron, destroyed his chances. Cameron’s supporters were quick to highlight the praise he had received in the media to conference attendees. His performance changed the contest.
While there are no plans for a repeat of the ‘Q for Quintin’ farrago, the teams are going heavy on merchandise: Badenoch badges, TugendHATs and Cleverly T-shirts. Everyone wants as much of this on display as possible, to suggest that their candidate has star power and grassroots support.
For some time, the leadership contest has been seen as a showdown between Badenoch and Jenrick. While Badenoch was the initial frontrunner, Jenrick has gained the most MP backers and is now the bookies’ favourite. Both are to the right of the party compared with Cleverly and Tugendhat. Jenrick has based his campaign around leaving the ECHR and controlling immigration, while Badenoch presents herself as an authentic, straight-talking politician.
Badenoch still polls best with the membership. The feeling is that if she makes it into the final two, she will win. This suggests that any MPs who don’t want her to win should try to engineer a Jenrick vs Cleverly stand-off. Jenrick’s camp is confident that he has the backers to reach the final two no matter how conference goes. This plotting means that Badenoch needs to fight for her survival. Her campaign team will use conference to show that her popularity with members is so high that MPs should not deny them the chance to vote for her.
If either Tugendhat or Cleverly can demonstrate that they have momentum, then the other will probably be knocked out in the next round. The survivor will then have a job to do the following day trying to sweep up all the remaining votes so as to push Badenoch out. The last stage before the MPs’ final vote could well boil down to ‘Knock out Kemi’.
At the Labour conference, Cleverly was most frequently mentioned as the biggest problem for Labour
Allies of Badenoch will try to respond by arguing that she is the only one who can beat Jenrick with the membership. On her stall, there are plans for a photo-stand where members who sign up can be snapped with the message ‘I want to vote for Kemi’ – the idea being that it could convince MPs to let them have that chance.
At the Labour conference in Liverpool, Cleverly was most frequently mentioned as the biggest problem for Labour. He is seen as the Tory equivalent to Keir Starmer – as someone who will be well positioned if Labour keeps messing up. This is effectively his pitch: this is no time for a beginner. If Badenoch wins, Starmer’s team is braced for an aggressive opponent at Prime Minister’s Questions as well as a leader who will probably take an unusual approach to the media (she has previously used social media to take issue with stories relating to her).
‘The membership is desperate for a say after recent events,’ says an MP. The Tories need to tread carefully – the last thing they can afford to do is to further isolate the grassroots. MPs and councillors already complain about the lack of a ground game when they are out campaigning. After the past few years, many party activists haven’t been inspired enough to turn out, but this contest could offer a chance to change that. When the candidates get up to give their 20-minutespeeches on Wednesday, they will need to make every word count.
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