The former home secretary Priti Patel entered the Tory leadership contest last night, accusing potential rivals of waging “personal vendettas” and indulging in “a soap opera of finger-pointing and self-indulgence”.
Kemi Badenoch, the shadow housing, communities and local government secretary, is also expected to confirm she will run this weekend, before nominations close on Monday. But another ex-home secretary, the firebrand rightwinger Suella Braverman, was said to be in danger of falling short of gaining the support of the 10 MPs needed to get through to the next stage.
Positioning herself as the unity candidate in a party devastated byelection defeat, Patel said the Conservatives’ catastrophic election result was not the fault of party members but politicians “who fell out and left us short”.
Referring to some of the more apocalyptic assessments of her colleagues in the aftermath of polling day, she said it was not conservatism that had failed but some among its leadership.
She said conservative values – such as defending freedom, promoting enterprise, keeping people safe and spreading opportunity – remained very popular among voters. Rather than “obsessing” over definitions of “left” and “right”, Patel insisted she would represent “authentic” conservatism, suggesting a more traditional approach.
Her remarks will be seen as a deliberate attack on both Badenoch and Braverman, who have been the most combative of those who have already, or may yet, join the race to succeed Rishi Sunak.
Patel said: “It isn’t our heroic members who failed, but politicians’ distraction from public service.
“We must now turn our conservative values into strong policies to bring about positive change for people across our country.
“It is time to put unity before personal vendetta, country before party, and delivery before self-interest. I have done this throughout my 30 plus years of service to our party, in both government and opposition. I can get us match fit to win the next general election.”
Although nominations are yet to close, the campaign has already become bitter and personal. Earlier this month Badenoch was reported to have said Braverman was having a “very public nervous breakdown”.
Last week Badenoch accused an unnamed Conservative leadership rival of a dirty tricks campaign against her. The shadow housing, communities and local government secretary attacked her critics after a dossier was circulated claiming she was behind anonymous blog comments written 17 years ago in which the author celebrated being rude and made abusive remarks.
Badenoch posted in response on social media that it was “amusing/alarming the extraordinary lengths people will go to play dirty tricks”, claiming that “apparently, a leadership campaign has sent a ‘dirty dossier’ of ‘strong comments’ from 20 yrs ago to the Westminster lobby”.
She added: “We can do better than this, and I will be saying and writing more about how in due course.”
The claims within the dossier were first published in the Spectator, which asked: “Could these be the online comments of young Kemi Badenoch?” One remarked that “Most of the people who changed the world for good were notoriously rude. It was the bad people, Idi Amin, Hitler etc who were charming and respectful. People like you would have been defending them that they were good people because they had good manners. Robert Mugabe was also once known for his good manners!!”
Former home and foreign secretary James Cleverly, ex security minister Tom Tugendhat and ex immigration minister Robert Jenrick have said they will stand. Over the summer those who succeed in securing the necessary 10 nominations from Tory MPs will make their cases to party associations. Then in September MPs will hold a series of votes to reduce their number to four by 11 September.
The four will then use the party conference in Birmingham to try to win over members and MPs. Two key hustings before MPs will then take place on 8 October and 10 October before MPs vote later that day to reduce them to two.
Hustings will then take place around the country before a full vote of Tory members is held with the new leader being announced on 2 November.
