UK Conservative leadership candidates grapple over immigration, winning votes
Most say the new leader must end infighting after fourteen years in power ended in a crushing July election defeat and Labour landslide
The four candidates vying to be the next leader of Britain’s Conservatives began to outline their vision for the nation on Sunday, with immigration due to dominate the debate over the future of the party after a crushing election defeat.
At the beginning of the Conservatives’ annual conference in Birmingham, the four candidates, including front runners former immigration minister Robert Jenrick and former trade minister Kemi Badenoch, took to the airwaves to present their bids to become the party’s new leader.
After their 14 years in power ended with the Labour Party’s landslide victory in July, the Conservatives have begun a period of soul-searching, with most saying a new leader must end the infighting and lack of delivery they believe led the party to its worst election performance in its long history.
Leading contenders Jenrick and Badenoch put the focus firmly on immigration, with both saying former Conservative governments had badly failed to tackle an issue voters say is further stretching already struggling public services, such as health.
Jenrick said he would set “a legally binding cap cast in iron” on numbers allowed to enter Britain, and that the nation should leave the European Convention on Human Rights, a treaty agreed on by almost every European nation, which some Conservatives blame for stopping deportation flights for asylum seekers.
