Will Priti Patel’s ‘unity’ pitch succeed?

Priti Patel’s Tory leadership launch in Westminster this afternoon was an upbeat affair, featuring mango lassi and a tonne of merchandise. With caps, tote bags and even festival-esque ‘tour’ date t-shirts on offer for enthusiastic supporters, today’s event was excitedly dubbed a ‘political Glastonbury’ by one of her team, already kitted out in pro-Priti gear. Certainly, Patel’s speech took on an optimistic tone. Leading on her 14 years of experience as a Tory MP (including three as Home Secretary) she touched only briefly upon the recent ‘historic defeat’ suffered by her party at the general election. Instead, the Tory leadership hopeful focused on rebuilding trust between the membership, the public and the party – and repairing relations, after months of infighting, within the Conservative group too.

‘In the last few years, our party got wrapped up in squabbles in Westminster, verbal assaults upon each other that are divisive,’ the ‘Pritster’ told the room. ‘I have seen before what we can achieve together when we work together… Conservatism has not failed.’ Projecting her unity message unambiguously, Patel insisted that ‘the majority of the public’ share the ‘values and principles’ of the Tory party. As party leader, she promised she would ‘champion innovation over regulation, technology over taxation…, law and order and strong border control’. On immigration, the former Home Secretary refused to accept responsibility for her role in the handling of the small boats crisis. Instead, she laid out her vision for Britain’s borders: she would implement the Nationality and Borders Act and have ‘strong deterrents in place’ – although there was no mention of Rwanda in today’s speech. And while Patel talked tough on law and order, she doesn’t, she admitted, still believe in the death penalty. 

While a hopeful pitch, it wasn’t without criticism for her own side. ‘We were trying to be all things to all people,’ she lamented about her party’s election campaign. ‘We have to go back to being the true Conservative party that we stopped being.’ Patel’s speech focused on the need to build up grassroots support, telling campaigners that her 100-day plan involved making ‘CCHQ work you’. She wants the Conservative party to become the largest party of local government. She plans to reform the ‘controversial and unacceptable’ parliamentary candidate selection process that ‘parachuted’ candidates into local associations, as well as making the party chairman role an elected position.

But the Tory contender reserved her harshest words for Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour government. ‘All we have seen over the last 56 days is a Labour government of self-service politics without principle,’ Patel told her audience, ‘while Labour are trash talking Britain for their own desperate needs.’ Starmer’s Downing Street speech on Tuesday was ‘one of the most feeble, pitiful and dishonest speeches you will ever hear’, the former Home Secretary said, adding that the decision to means-test the winter fuel payment was a ‘nasty financial assault’ on pensioners. Patel then blasted Sir Keir’s decision to remove a painting of the Iron Lady from the former No. 10 study. ‘If he wants a picture to replace Margaret Thatcher, he can always have this one,’ she quipped, nodding to a larger-than-life self-portrait looming behind her. 

So how will Patel entice disillusioned voters back to the Conservatives? She didn’t dwell much on Nigel Farage’s Reform party, instead merely nodding to ‘that non-conservative shade of blue which occasionally pops up at elections’. When quizzed on how to appeal to those that swung to the Lib Dems in July, Patel claimed that the answer lies in a return to ‘authentic’ Conservatism. The ex-Home Secretary has taken her campaign as far as Peebles in Scotland, the land of ‘divisive and corrupt nationalists’, and today pledged more support for her Scottish counterparts in Holyrood – despite almost half of the Scottish Tories rowing in behind Tom Tugendhat. 2024’s was the ‘most gruelling campaign’ she has fought, the Tory contender admitted, but has no qualms when asked whether the Tories can win the next election. ‘You bet we can. Absolutely. No question.’ 

Patel has managed to keep to the shadows while more recent bouts of infighting took hold of the Conservative party, and as Katy wrote recently in The Spectator, she has the support of both Trussites and Boris-backers. But while she has tried to remain an uncontroversial choice for party leader, the former Home Secretary isn’t a frontrunner in this race. Patel’s big test will come next week, when Tory MPs reduce the competitor field to just four candidates. YouGov polling has her in fifth place out of the six candidates, while the bookies put her odds as 16/1 – but much can change in the space of a week.