The Conservative Party conference was held in Birmingham. The party has alternated its venue between Birmingham and Manchester since 2024. Birmingham is the United Kingdom’s second-biggest city, but it is a very weak area for the Conservatives. All 10 Birmingham seats are held by Labour.
This is the first conference that the party has held as an opposition party since 2009. The Conservatives (Tories) were in office for 14 years. Now they need to get used to being outside of government. It may be a long time, possibly even 20 years before the party wins office again.
The attendees were surprisingly diverse. The Tory Party has a problem with women. Only 20% of Conservative candidates are women, as opposed to 55% of Labour candidates. However, there were plenty of women at the conference.
About 20% of people at the conference were from visible ethnic minorities. In the 1990s, this figure would have been 1%. This partly reflects the increase in the percentage of non-whites in the party but also shows that the party is now more successful in reaching out to ethnic minorities.
There were plenty of young people at the conference. The age at which a person becomes more likely to vote Conservative than Labour is now 67, which is very worrying for the party. There are far more 18-year-olds than 67-year-olds. Age is the single biggest indicator of likely voting behaviour.
There was a tizzy of excitement about the party because it was about to elect a new leader. This is the first time that a leadership contest has gone through a party conference since 2005 when David Cameron won.
The 2016 leadership race was decided in July when a leader was elected unopposed. In 2019, the contest was decided before the party conference. The first 2022 leadership contest was decided in September, before the party conference. The October 2022 leadership election was decided within a week when only one candidate – Rishi Sunak – was nominated.
There are four candidates running now.
James Cleverly, a 54-year-old man of black-white origin, is a former army reserve officer. He attended the University of West London, one of the lower-ranked universities in the UK. He was the Foreign Secretary. Within the party, he is nicknamed "not so cleverly." Mr Cleverly is known for his opposition to Palestine. He is married, and his wife recently recovered from cancer. Cleverly is regarded as well-meaning and honest, though some consider him lacking in intelligence.
Robert Jenrick, aged 42, is a Cambridge-educated barrister and the youngest of the candidates. He served in the cabinet and is an outspoken advocate of Israel’s policies. He has worn a T-shirt designating Hamas as a terrorist group. He is married with children. Jenrick has stated that he would take the United Kingdom out of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), a stance that has horrified left-wing lawyers. Outside the ECHR, the UK could more easily deport illegal immigrants. Jenrick is seen as dull, earnest, and charmless, but also single-minded and competent.
Tom Tugendhat, 54, was educated at St Paul’s School, the same school as Sri Aurobindo. After Bristol University, he attended Cambridge, where he took a degree in Arabic. He served as an army officer. Tugendhat is married with children. He campaigned for the UK to remain in the European Union, although most of the party wanted to leave. He accepts the will of the people and believes it is right that the UK is now outside the EU. He is bright and an effective communicator. He is also a fervent Zionist. Mr Tugendhat has said he would try to amend the UK’s legislation incorporating the ECHR into domestic law. If that’s not possible, he would repeal the Human Rights Act that domesticates the ECHR. He is seen as a liberal within the party, although he has spoken out against "wokery" and the idea that a man can become a woman. However, he is proud that the party passed gay marriage. Tugendhat has not promised to restore the winter fuel allowance to pensioners, which Labour has just removed. He is charismatic and wily and has been cautious enough not to tie himself down to specific policy commitments, stating that he cannot write a budget five years in advance.
There were people at the conference wearing caps called ‘Tugend hats’.
Kemi Badenoch is the only female candidate. This 46-year-old black woman was born in the UK but raised mostly in Nigeria, her parents’ homeland. Mrs Badenoch attended the University of London and worked in IT for banks. She is married to a white British man and has two children. She voted for Brexit, while her husband did not. She is a practising Christian and a strong defender of Israel’s actions in Gaza. She represents Saffron Walden, which is 98% white. Kemi Badenoch is sanguine, personable, and an effective speaker. Her anti-woke views have won her praise. She has said that the UK’s wealth did not come from slavery and that immigrants must integrate, as her family did.
There was genuine enthusiasm for the candidates. When they came out from behind the main stage, they were cheered loudly by their supporters.
Members of Parliament will vote to narrow down the list to the final two candidates. Then, the ordinary members of the party will vote in an online ballot.
The big question is who will make it into the final two. Robert Jenrick is out in front among the MPs, so it is almost certain he will be in the top two. The competition is between James Cleverly and Mrs Badenoch for the second spot.
At the moment, Kemi Badenoch is the party’s darling. She would be the first person of African origin to lead any British party and the fourth woman to lead the Conservative Party. Two of the last four Tory leaders have been female.
If it comes down to Jenrick versus Cleverly in the members' ballot, it is thought that Jenrick would narrowly win.
All four candidates have held cabinet positions. None of them are particularly old or young to be seeking the top job, and none of them are tainted by scandal.
The Conservative and Unionist Party was once criticised as "pale, male, and stale," but only two of the four candidates were white males. Tugendhat could even be considered part of an ethnic minority because of his Jewish ancestry.
The leadership is a poisoned chalice. Whoever wins in 2024 will never be Prime Minister. They will likely lead the party to defeat in 2029.
Former prime ministers were thin on the ground. Rishi Sunak held a farewell reception and is eager to step down from leadership. Boris Johnson, Theresa May, David Cameron, and John Major all stayed away. The ill-fated Liz Truss was present. Miss Truss was PM for 49 disastrous days, and the party is keen not to remind the public of her time in office. Truss now claims that the party would have done better in the 2024 election had she remained as Prime Minister.
There were stalls for various groups within the party: Conservative Friends of Pakistan, Conservative Friends of Israel, Conservative Friends of India, and so on. There were also groups like the Conservative Women’s Organisation, Conservative Friends of the NHS, Popular Conservatives, National Conservatives, and other factions.
Conservative Friends of Pakistan aims to encourage British Pakistanis and Pakistani residents in the UK to vote for the party. Note that Commonwealth citizens who are legally resident in the UK are allowed to vote in parliamentary elections. CFP is not trying to shape British policy towards Pakistan.
Various lobbying groups and organisations had stalls at the conference. These included the Kurdistan Regional Government, the National Farmers’ Union, Shelter, environmental groups, and those lobbying for a third runway to be built at Heathrow Airport.
Since the party is unlikely to win an election for at least a decade, fewer companies or organisations than usual paid for stalls. A small stall costs £6,000, while large ones can cost 10 times that amount. Stalls are rented out to businesses, foreign embassies, and lobbying groups to help cover the cost of the conference. The event involves renting a huge conference centre for five days and hiring hundreds of security staff.
Usually, far-left protestors verbally abuse Conservatives as they arrive. This time, there were only a handful of Remainer anti-democratic bigots outside. The Conservative Party was so thoroughly defeated that leftists did not think it worth their while to abuse the Tories.
There are 650 Conservative Associations in the UK: one for every parliamentary constituency. The party has around 130,000 members. Some associations have over 1,000 members, while others have fewer than 10.
Each association sends a couple of delegates. Ordinary party members can attend if they pay £70. The conference lasts from Sunday to Thursday. The entry fee is the same whether a person attends for one day or all five.
The conference was held at Symphony Hall, which is directly connected to the Hyatt Hotel, where some of the party grandees stayed.
There is a secure zone around the conference, and only party members, accredited journalists, and lobbyists are allowed in.
All the well-known British political journalists were present, including Emily Maitlis, the BBC interviewer who brought down Prince Andrew.
Travelodge is a very cheap chain of hotels in the UK, where a room can cost as little as £30 a night. But because of the conference, rooms cost £100.
The author is a political analyst based in London, UK