Kemi Badenoch might regret being left with Priti Patel rather than Suella Braverman
Suella Braverman’s departure this morning means that, in the last ten days, the Conservatives have lost three MPs and three former leadership candidates — and all of them on the right of the party. Although Kemi stressed in a letter to MPs following Robert Jenrick’s defection that “We are THE party of the right and must remain so,” the momentum in the party is perceptively shifting away.
The most surprising thing about Suella’s defection is that it has taken this long; she seems to have been on defection watch longer than we were waiting for her Rwanda flights to start. Nigel Farage’s imposed deadline of May 7th appears to be focussing minds amongst potential defectors in the Tory Party, as do the consequences of Robert Jenrick’s defection. Since the Newark MP defected, the outlook for those on the right has become starker; there have been purges of people suspected of talking to Reform, whilst at the same time the centrist faction of the Conservative Party has moved to reassert itself. Kemi’s letter also warned that “some of our colleagues opining on social media seem to have taken these defections as a signal that the party is shifting (or should) ideologically away from the right.”
When I interviewed Jenrick after his defection — which is out tomorrow — he warned that centrists would see his departure as a chance to re-assert themselves, leaving the party at risk of drifting away from what he argues remains the true centre of gravity in British politics.
Matthew Parris has argued that the Conservatives should now reach across the chasm, extending an olive branch to figures such as Kenneth Clarke, Michael Heseltine, David Gauke and Dominic Grieve. Gauke himself suggests that, with Jenrick’s populist voice removed, Badenoch should now “enthusiastically take the party in a different direction”. Meanwhile Andy Street and Ruth Davidson have launched “Prosper”, a grassroots initiative pitched at the seven million centre and centre-right voters they argue are now politically homeless, championing a pro-business agenda of growth, jobs, housing and opportunity while warning against populism and any “lurch to the right”. The supporters list is a veritable “Who’s Who” of centrists who were.
Doubtless it will be a factor in future defections from the right of the party that this side of the party feels so empowered, and the main figure dragging the party to the right has gone. Even if Kemi is true to her right-wing credentials, will the party let her? When Jenrick defected, it was made into an issue of personality and personal ambition. Suella’s ambition lay in a Jenrick-led Tory Party — or at least a Tory Party run to Robert Jenrick’s ideas — that would see her return to the front bench.
Doubtless, the promise of playing a role in government versus sitting on the backbenches played some part in her decision; likely too that Braverman is a contested figure in the Tories, whilst Reform have always considered her “one they want”.
But the Tories seems to have taken a different approach to this defection, with a statement from the party alluding to her state of mind: “The Conservatives did all we could to look after Suella’s mental health, but she was clearly very unhappy.” If it is true, suggesting defectors are mentally ill is appalling; if it is not, it is one of the stupidest possible responses to the Reform threat one could possibly imagine — apart, perhaps, from alleging that they are Nazis, which Shadow Foreign Secretary Priti Patel did on Sunday.
The story of the right’s new cleavage can be told through these two former Home Secretaries. Braverman failed to control immigration but at least made an effort through the Rwanda scheme; unable to move the party in private she tried to move them in public, found herself out of favour and has now defected. Patel likewise failed to control immigration, has completely failed to make any apology for her role in the Boriswave, even going so far as to deny it is a problem, and continues to sit on the front bench. It is becoming increasingly untenable — if it ever has been tenable — for Kemi to continue sitting alongside Patel while professing wounded surprise that Conservatives are drawing their own conclusions from this.
