Calls for unity as Conservative leadership election draws to a close

Two senior Conservative MPs have called for unity when the new party leader is announced this weekend.

Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick are in the final days of campaigning in the contest to succeed Rishi Sunak as the party’s leader.

The winner is due to be announced on Saturday, almost four months after the party’s general election defeat that triggered Mr Sunak’s resignation.

Shadow work and pensions secretary Mel Stride told the PA news agency that he would like to see the “party coming together” in the coming days, while former party chair Richard Holden said that he hopes to see members “rallying around” the new leader.

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Asked what he would like to see in the coming days, Mr Stride – who stood as a contender earlier in the contest – told the PA news agency: “Well, the party coming together.”

He added: “Whoever wins this contest – we’ll know on Saturday – I have no doubt that I and my colleagues will be rallying around whoever is the winner of that contest so that we can get our policy platform together, get out there … and work our way back into political contention and get this disastrous government out, and win the next general election.”

The contest has been under way since the summer, with six contenders, including Mr Stride, being put to MPs and eventually being reduced down to the final two.

Earlier in the autumn, Mr Jenrick had called for the contest to be shortened so that the winner could be in place to respond to Rachel Reeves’ Budget on Wednesday.

Mr Stride said he thought there are “pros and cons” to the long timetable, but added: “Personally I don’t think it’s been a bad thing that it’s been a long contest, because I think it allowed everybody a real opportunity to set out their stall.”

He went on: “The important thing is that we will have a result on Saturday and we will unite as a party and move forward.”

Mr Holden, who is backing Mr Jenrick in the contest, was the chair of the party when it was defeated in July’s general election.

He told PA that after Saturday’s result that “whoever wins the leadership contest”, he hopes to see the party “rallying around the new leader and uniting” for the sake of opposition.

Mr Holden was speaking after Conservative MPs had gathered in Westminster opposing the Government’s changes to the winter fuel allowance.

He said: “That’s why events like today are so important to really provide that strong opposition to what the Labour government is doing and then over time, set out that manifesto for the future to win back the trust of the British people and to really provide a forward positive-looking vision of where we want the country to go long-term.”

Mr Jenrick and Ms Badenoch are campaigning to secure the support of party members before the ballots close later this week.

In the wake of the row over reparations during the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting last week, Mr Jenrick has said that former British colonies owe the UK a “debt of gratitude” for the “inheritance” that has been left.

Writing in the Daily Mail on Tuesday, Mr Jenrick said: “I’m not ashamed of our history. It may not feel like it, but many of our former colonies – amid the complex realities of Empire – owe us a debt of gratitude for the inheritance we left them.”

Asked if Sir Keir Starmer agreed with the leadership contender, the Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “No and as you’ve heard from the Prime Minister at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, we should be clear from the outset that the slave trade, slave practice, was abhorrent and that is an important starting place.”

He added: “The UK’s position on this is to look forwards, not backwards, on these issues, and work on the shared challenges that countries in the Commonwealth face, from climate change to increased trade and growth.”

Meanwhile, Ms Badenoch told Times Radio that the party is at a “crossroads” with “one chance to get this right”.

Asked about whether she thought there was a “whiff of impropriety” about the other contender, she said she was “not interested” in talking about Mr Jenrick, and added: “What I’m saying is that we have lost the election because the public have lost trust in Conservatives.”

She added: “We have lost trust with the public and if we’re going to get that back they are going to want somebody who has demonstrated integrity.”

In an interview with The Telegraph at the weekend, the North West Essex MP said: “With me you’d have a leader where there’s no scandal.

“I was never sacked for anything, I didn’t have to resign in disgrace or, you know, because there was a whiff of impropriety”.

Mr Jenrick was embroiled in a number of scandals during his time as housing, communities and Local government secretary while Boris Johnson was prime minister.

They included rows over his involvement in a housing development application by billionaire Richard Desmond, and criticism over the award of a £25 million government grant to his constituency.

He was dismissed from the job in September 2021.