The task facing the next Conservative Leader

We need to reunite the right as well as introducing transformative policies

Inevitably, the main discussion and interest at the Conservative Party Conference has been on the Conservative Leadership contest. The various candidates moved around the Conference Centre surrounded by the modern equivalent of lictors as they went from event to event. Each one has been quizzed on the main stage by Christopher Hope and had the opportunity to address the members on the closing day.

All of the candidates have great virtues. Kemi Badenoch is the most charismatic, Tom Tugendhat the cleverest, Robert Jenrick the most hard-working, and James Cleverly the most affable. These qualities are all an important part of a leader’s armoury and, if all four could be combined in one person, that would be an ideal leader.

However, the leadership debate has been surprisingly narrow. The main topic has been immigration and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Admittedly, this is the area where the Tories most abjectly failed, migration was out of control for many of the last fourteen years, only being moderately controlled towards the end of the period. In part, this was caused by the Human Rights Convention, but it was mainly legal migration that was the problem, illegal boat crossings were only about five per cent of the total by 2023. The ECHR did not affect legal migration. It was the area where the Reform Party made the most devastating criticisms during the election campaign, and it is hard to see how the Tory party can quickly rebuild the voters’ trust in this area.

Nonetheless, concentration on immigration has excluded other, potentially more important, issues - both of policy and of politics.