TORY leadership contenders made their final conference pitches, seeking to outbid each other in anti-migrant sentiment, bellicosity and fealty to Israel.
The four candidates took to the stage in Birmingham to outline their perspectives for reviving the battered Conservative Party, aiming their appeals at the party’s reactionary membership rather than the wider public.
The 121 Tory MPs will whittle the list down to just two over the next week, who will then go to a ballot of the Tory membership.
Front-runner and former immigration minister Robert Jenrick dialled up his anti-migrant positioning.
He told Tory representatives: “The age of mass migration must end.
“It’s not making us any richer, it’s putting immense pressure on our housing, our hospitals, our roads and the lack of integration is sapping at our culture and our national cohesion.”
Mr Jenrick, best known for signing off an unlawful planning deal with a former porn baron and for ordering the painting over of cartoon murals in a children’s asylum centre, has also committed to displaying the Israeli flag at entry points to the country, boosting military spending to 3 per cent of GDP and criminalising the public shouting of “God is great” in Arabic.
His rival on the hard-right, culture warrior Kemi Badenoch pledged “a comprehensive plan to reprogramme the British state, to reboot the British economy, a plan that considers every aspect of what the state does and why it does it” including the Equality Act, devolution and the NHS.
Ms Badenoch, whose campaign has featured attacks on maternity pay and the minimum wage as well as a threat to imprison recalcitrant civil servants, also claimed that the last government never broke with the legacy of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.
She said: “The British public knows that socialism doesn’t work. But you can give it a new label.
“You can promote class warfare under the banner of equality.
“If you call communism, environmentalism, you can close down businesses, block the roads and stop people going to work.”
Former home and foreign secretary James Cleverley claimed he is the candidate the other parties “fear the most,” which may be true.
As if trying to prove Ms Badenoch’s point, he channelled Mr Brown, telling the conference that “now is not the time for an apprentice.”
He boasted of talking tough to the Chinese government, unwavering support for Israel and boosting military spending and ruled out any pacts with Reform.
Former security minister Tom Tugendhat also touted his experience as a soldier and boasted of the role played by the British armed forces in supporting Israel this week.
He did, however, tell the conference some home truths about migration: “This isn’t simple.
“We issued the visas because businesses need the staff for our care homes and our hospitals to look after our families.
“We need higher wages, and for that, businesses need to be able to grow faster.”
After this dismal parade, Commons leader Lucy Powell commented that the Tories “have learnt nothing from their abysmal defeat at the general election.
“These are dangerous and reckless ideas, from Tory leadership contenders who are out of touch with what matters to the British people.”
