Defeated UK Tories suffer ‘very public nervous breakdown’

The U.K. Conservative Party just suffered its worst-ever election defeat. And the bloodletting has already begun.

Former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will be replaced as leader by one of the party’s remaining 121 MPs in what has historically been a brutal succession process.

Both publicly and privately, senior Tories are calling for a civil contest where leadership contenders do not “air their dirty laundry in public,” as one leading Conservative put it. (Like others in this story they were granted anonymity to speak candidly about their party’s future.)

Not everyone got the memo.

One week on from the crushing election defeat, the Tories’ right-wing standard-bearers are already embroiled in a very public spat.

Suella Braverman, the Brexiteer ex-home secretary who has become one of the Conservatives’ most outspoken right-wing critics, began firing torpedos at the current leadership even before polling day.

A very public nervous breakdown

Then Kemi Badenoch, the former business secretary and the front-runner and bookmakers’ favorite in the contest, also attacked Sunak’s leadership at a private meeting of his top team, according to carefully placed briefings to the press. She also accused Braverman of a “very public nervous breakdown.”

Braverman did not react well, firing off angry messages on social media in response. Colleagues are not impressed.

The U.K. Conservative Party just suffered its worst-ever election defeat. | Oli Scarff/Getty Images

Kevin Hollinrake, a business minister under Rishi Sunak, told POLITICO: “We made our mistakes in previous leadership campaigns of … too much blue-on-blue, and that extended into life outside the leadership contest.

“It still continues, with people being critical of the leader. I think that should never happen. Those kinds of disagreements should happen behind closed doors.”

No contender has yet formally announced their candidacy — but all know they first and foremost need support of MP colleagues. Tory MPs will whittle down the contenders to a shortlist of two via a series of votes before party members pick the winner in a nationwide ballot.

On the MP front, Braverman already looks in deep trouble, with support ebbing away rapidly at an early stage.

Two of her closest MP allies, Danny Kruger and John Hayes, reportedly switched their support to Robert Jenrick, the former immigration minister who is expected to enter the contest.

Four Tory insiders told POLITICO that some of those previously linked to Braverman and involved in aggressive briefings against Sunak last year — dubbed the “grid of shit” in Westminster — have also now joined Jenrick’s leadership bid.

Braverman is finished

One shadow Cabinet minister said Braverman’s campaign was already “finished” due to the lack of MP support. A second agreed, noting that many of those who supported her in her failed 2022 leadership bid — when she lost out to Liz Truss — lost their seats in the election carnage.

An MP who backed Braverman in that campaign said “things have moved on” since 2022 and that a candidate is now needed to unite the party and take on Nigel Farage’s populist Reform UK “without becoming them.”

One Tory who was elected for the first time last week said that Braverman was now viewed as “toxic” and did not have a base of support among the party’s new intake of MPs.

The Tories’ right-wing standard-bearers are already embroiled in a very public spat. | Justin Tallis/Getty Images

Instead, Braverman looks set to be supplanted as the Tory right’s favored candidate by Priti Patel, another former home secretary, who served under Boris Johnson. Her allies believe she can pull together a wide base of support within the party, as well as being popular with the Conservative membership.

On the left of the party, Tom Tugendhat, the shadow security minister, is also expected to announce his candidacy. One senior Conservative told POLITICO Tugendhat “pulls his support from a different wing of the party than the others,” but, if he found himself as one of the final two candidates, would struggle to appeal to the party’s predominantly right-wing membership.

James Cleverly, now shadow home secretary, is popular among colleagues but, according to someone in touch with his thinking, is wary of taking on the job at such a difficult time for the party.

Outside the main candidates, Ben Houchen, the mayor of Tees Valley and a Tory peer in the House of Lords, is expected to play a pivotal role in this year’s leadership contest as one of the few remaining Conservatives with a mandate from voters — he was reelected in May. Houchen has been approached by several candidates with offers of a shadow Cabinet position in return for his support.

To go long or short

The contest outcome could be determined in part by the timescale, which will be decided by the 1922 Committee of Tory backbench MPs. A new chair, Bob Blackman, was elected this week, after long-standing head Graham Brady, who dispatched three prime ministers, stood down at the election.

A longer race is thought to favor all the candidates bar Badenoch. While a shorter contest would potentially bring stability, with a new leader swiftly able to get on with the job of opposing new Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer, one former Cabinet minister warned this risked becoming a “Kemi coronation.”

James Cleverly, is popular among colleagues. | Pool Photo by Darren Staples via Getty Images

A second ex-Cabinet minister said that a longer contest was preferable so that leadership candidates could show “contrition” for the failures of the last government and to allow space for the party to debate ideas.

The bad feeling within the party was encapsulated by a moment outside Wednesday’s meeting of the 1922 Committee, when executive member Bernard Jenkin tried to assure journalists the gathering had been “remarkably harmonious.”

He was loudly interrupted by his colleague Edward Leigh, parliament’s longest serving MP, who interjected: “You can’t recover this by saying we’re all united.”

It could be a long summer for parliament’s remaining Conservatives.