Badenoch or Jenrick: How to pick between ‘two flavours of the right’?

By Michael Baggs (with Emily, Jon and Lewis)

With Conservative Party members now set to vote between Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick as its next leader, is there a “danger” the party will now push too far to the right?

Read time: 5 mins

In brief…

• The final Tory leadership candidates, Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick, offer voting members two right-wing choices to helm the UK’s opposition party.
• The News Agents say a win either way could push the party to “a place on the right where the British people won't want to go.”
• Members will now vote for their preferred candidate, with the winner set to be confirmed on 2 November.

What's the story?

The News Agents once described Robert Jenrick and Kemi Badenoch as "a man who will say anything and a woman who will do anything" to become leader.

Well, one of them will now take the top spot in the Tory party, after the unexpected elimination of James Cleverly from the leadership race.

Unexpected, because just 24 hours prior, he had placed top in the previous round of voting, and was seen as the favourite to become the next party leader.

"Speechless" and "an own goal" were The News Agents' responses to the result of the vote, made by Tory MPs, to narrow the contest down to the two most right-wing candidates on the ballot.

Party members will now vote for their preferred candidate, and the winner will be named on 2 November.

But with Jenrick demanding the UK leave the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR), and Badenoch accusing previous Tory leaders of allowing the UK to become "increasingly liberal", what does this mean for the future of the party, which was ousted from power by a centrist Labour Party in the summer of 2024, and conceded significant losses to Liberal Democrats and Reform UK candidates?

Cleverly out of Tory race: 'The candidate Labour feared is gone'

What would Tory leadership look like under Badenoch or Jenrick?

The answer is quite simple: very right-wing.

Following the Conservative defeat in the summer's election, there were united calls for the party to reflect on its losses in order to find its footing in UK politics once again.

But the final choice in the leadership contest gives members little choice in how that is done.

Jenrick moved from being seen as a moderate Tory MP, but who has shifted further to right during his time in office – with his sharp turn leading to his politics being questioned over their authenticity.

"I'm sure what Badenoch will try and do is say that all of this from Jenrick is superficial, that he doesn't really believe anything he's saying," says Lewis Goodall.

"She will be saying: 'I am someone who, whatever you think of me, has always believed what I believe, and my convictions are deeply seated. This guy is simply telling you what he thinks you want to hear'."

Jenrick's answer to immigration concerns in the UK is apparently very simple – leave the ECHR, which has strict rules on how people entering a country to live must be treated across Europe. His comments on the organisation drew fierce criticism during the campaign to become Tory leader, as he said that our special forces are “killing, rather than capturing terrorists because of fears that the ECHR laws would see detained terrorists freed.

Badenoch said this plan is offering "easy answers" to a complex solution.

But her campaign hasn't been smooth either. She faced widespread condemnation for comments that maternity pay in the UK had "gone too far" and that some civil servants in the UK should be "in prison". She claimed her maternity pay comments had been taken out of context.

The current state of the Tories will, Jon Sopel says, thrill both Labour and the Liberal Democrats.

"The Conservative Party were defeated by a rather centrist Labour government, where a large number of seats went to the Liberal Democrats because the Conservative Party was seen as too right wing, and people were just disillusioned after 14 years," Jon says.

"The Conservative Party looks like the answer it's alighting on is to go further to the right, and that's why I think Keir Starmer will be delighted, and Ed Davey will be thrilled by it."

Clevery knocked out Tory leadership race, leaving Jenrick vs Badenoch

What's The News Agents take?

The choice on who becomes the next leader of the Tory party is now out of the hands of the MPs, with members set to vote between Badenoch and Jenrick.

Jon believes that as a number of high-profile Tories have moved further to the right in recent years, many of its members have done the same.

"We've got to look at the wider picture of what does this say about the Conservative Party, and how does it position itself now for the rest of this Parliament, with the new leader, either Jenrick or Badenoch," he says.

"It always felt to me that if it came down to a choice between Cleverly and Jenrick, or Cleverly and Badenoch, Badenoch or Jenrick would have won, because the Conservative Party membership is way right of the Conservative Party in parliament."

Lewis says members are now left with "two flavours of the right."

"You've got Jenrick, who is – as some focus groups have suggested, almost an AI-generated Conservative candidate who has calibrated exactly where he thinks the Tory party is, which is on the right, so it'll be hard for him to tap back to the centre, if that's even what he wants to do," he says.

"Or Kemi Badenoch, who, as we know, has a tendency towards self implosion and getting distracted by quite online right and conspiratorial Conservative politics."

This was on display when Emily questioned the opposition MP on her maternity pay comments at the recent Tory party conference.

Kemi Badenoch brushes off her previous maternity pay comments

When it comes to members' votes, Jon says ultimately it should come down to "common sense".

"You want to vote for the person who you think gives you the best chance of getting back into power at the next general election, rather than the person who is going to give you ideological purity and stand up for all the things that you believe in, even though the rest of the British electorate might not," he says.

"I think that the danger for the Conservative Party is that it pushes itself out to a place on the right where the British people won't want to go."

But of course, Conservative Party members don't have a spotless track record when it comes to choosing its leaders.

"Literally, the membership voted Liz Truss over Rishi Sunak," Emily adds.

"So on that basis, if nothing's changed, I'd say Badenoch gets in over Jenrick."

Listen in full on The News Agents

---