Tory leadership hopefuls want to prove how 'anti-woke' they are. It shows they've learned nothing

After a historic pasting in the general election, the Conservative Party is back in the saddle, with MPs voting to trim its leadership contest from six candidates to four. But are the Tories drawing the wrong lessons from their election defeat?  

The designated frontrunner Kemi Badenoch writes in The Times that the Conservative Party “talked right yet governed left” – a bizarre verdict on 14 years of Tory rule. She claims the UK’s asylum system is “effectively open borders to anyone willing to lie about their circumstances”, which will come as a surprise to the refugees in the Bibby Stockholm.  

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She goes on to warn of “nasty identity politics” and “a post-modernism that can best be described as joyless decadence”, as if this culture war drivel means anything outside of her bubble.  

Her rival on the right, Robert Jenrick, won’t be outdone in the “anti-woke” department. He writes in The Telegraph, “our culture is under attack from extremists that threaten many of our public institutions”, but he neglects to say who they are. This is McCarthyism without communists. 

Jenrick is also Mr Nationalism: Of his 10 “principles” for a “common creed”, six assert the importance of the nation-state, including its power to act freely in the world, especially on immigration, where Jenrick proposes an “annual cap” in the tens of thousands. How he squares this with his support for free markets, or for a strong NHS, are questions he leaves open.  

Jenrick has also said he supports Donald Trump in the US election, and recently proposed that people who shout the Islamic phrase “Allahu Akbar” in public should be “immediately arrested”.   

Next up is James Cleverly, who presents himself as a serious man who can get things done. The trouble is his list of wins include Boris Johnson’s election victory in 2019, “securing Brexit”, and a deportation deal with Rwanda – all disasters. As for immigration, on 12 August, after two people died trying to cross the English Channel by boat, Cleverly blamed the newly-elected Labour government: “Their rhetoric encouraged people smugglers, and the tragic consequences are now clear for all of us to see.” 

Fellow candidate Priti Patel was the actual brain behind the Rwanda plan, which should be her political epitaph, along with supporting Boris Johnson in the 2022 Tory leadership contest – that’s after Partygate and the rest. Mel Stride is a paper candidate who is not so much running for Tory leader as running to serve the next one in shadow cabinet. 

The designated moderate Tom Tugendhat is falling into the familiar trap of trying to appeal to everyone, and thereby appealing to no one. A bland speech after the riots was peppered with references to the perils of “critical race theory” and a warning that a mooted working definition of Islamophobia would create a “blasphemy law”. 

In a rare concession to reality, the candidates admit that Tory rule was not a clear summer’s day. They concede that Conservative government suffered from bouts of division, incompetence, chaos and the odd breach of public trust. 

But that’s as far as it goes. What you won’t hear is any self-criticism about austerity or Brexit – the two dominating policies since 2010 – or about foisting Boris Johnson and Liz Truss on the country. (By the by, supposed moderates Cleverly and Tugendhat backed Truss in the 2022 leadership contest.) 

And all the candidates remain convinced that immigration is the key to the hearts of the British public – never questioning, as the streets are filled with violent racists, whether the demand for Faragism might be something to crush rather than appease. 

As Keir Starmer discovered in 2020, if you tell party members what you think they wish to hear, they might crown you leader. But this only postpones the inevitable showdown with your party’s ideologues and bigots. And even during that campaign, Starmer repeatedly called for Labour to change, and pledged to “tear out anti-semitism by its roots”. 

By contrast, none of the Tory leadership candidates are promising to change the direction of the party, or to confront its own extremists. But sooner or later that confrontation will happen. No matter how right-wing, the next Tory leader will be accused of being a centrist or woke or globalist sell-out by the right. The most impressive candidate will be the one who does the most to earn this, and brings the party with them. 

Adam Barnett is a journalist and political commentator for DeSmog and others.

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