LONDON, Sept 10 (Askume) – The race to decide the future direction of Britain’s once dominant Conservative Party was narrowed to four candidates on Tuesday after the ouster of centrist former work and pensions minister Mel Stride.
The race to replace former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak as leader will last until November 2, after which Tory members will hold a final vote on a new leader to reverse the party’s defeat by Labour in July. History is failure.
In Tuesday’s second round of voting, right-wing Robert Jenrick was again ahead, having resigned as immigration minister because he believed the then-government’s plan to send refugees to Rwanda was not tough enough.
Jenrick received 33 votes, with former trade minister Kemi Badenoch second on 28. Former security minister Tom Tugendhat and former home affairs minister James Cleverly each received 21 votes, leaving Stride 16 votes short of being eliminated.
After 14 years in power, the Conservatives’ number of seats in Parliament fell from more than 360 in 2019 to 121 in July’s election. There are fewer MPs and the final votes tend to come from Conservative members (the party has not given specific numbers), making it difficult to predict the winner.
Whoever takes over as Tory leader will face an uphill battle to undo the damage done during their previous eight years in power, which were marked by chaos, scandal and deep divisions over Brexit.
The Conservative Party has gone through four leadership changes since former Prime Minister David Cameron left office after losing the 2016 Brexit referendum, three of whom have been ousted by their own MPs.
All the remaining candidates say they want to unify the party and return it to its conservative roots of small government, low taxes and individual liberty, but they are divided on how to handle immigration, an issue that voters see as a public issue, more importantly.
Jenrick said the only way to deal with the surge in immigration is to limit legal immigration and detain and deport those who enter the country illegally within a few days. He also advocates for Britain to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which almost all European countries have agreed to.
Unlike his rivals, Badenock has refused to set any limits on the number of people who can enter the UK or leave the ECtHR. Instead, he believes the immigration system is broken and says that if the Conservatives are able to win power at the next election, which is due to take place by mid-August 2029, the first thing they need to do is to deport those who have to be sacked and those who are deporting “indecisive” people.
