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Robert Jenrick has suggested that his rival in the Conservative leadership contest, Kemi Badenoch, could turn the party into a “Twitter account” in the latest phase of a bitter row between the candidates.
Speaking at the weekend Badenoch, the former business secretary, appeared to question Jenrick’s integrity claiming if she were elected the party would have a leader “where there’s no scandal”.
Alluding to Jenrick’s controversial approval of a housing scheme in London Docklands in 2020, Badenoch told The Telegraph newspaper: “I was never sacked for anything, I didn’t have to resign in disgrace or, you know, because there was a whiff of impropriety.”
Jenrick was eventually forced to reverse a decision he made as housing secretary in 2020 to approve a development by the businessman Richard Desmond, after it emerged he had been lobbied by Desmond at a party fundraising event. Approval had been granted days before a rise in council community charges, which could have potentially saved Desmond £40 million.
Badenoch’s comments, which came just days before the ballot of Tory activists is due to close, have resulted in a furious response from Jenrick.
On Sunday, Jenrick told GB News that “if Kemi does this to Conservative colleagues, this will be the death of the Conservative Party.”
“The public are sick to death of this kind of garbage. It needs to end now. This is misinformation. These are petty personal attacks. You cannot claim to be a unity candidate and go making ad hominem attacks on Conservative colleagues.
“If this is the manner in which Kemi would conduct herself as leader of the party, the party has no future. It has to end.”
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Badenoch later hit back, defending her comments and warning that the “public don’t trust the Conservatives anymore”. She told GB News: “Given the public don’t trust us, you want somebody who hasn’t had any of those sorts of issues.
“The point is, all of these attacks have been thrown at me throughout the campaign, and I said nothing. But when I’m asked a question and I answer it honestly, which I will always do, I tell the truth.”
Responding again in an interview with Times Radio on Monday morning, Robert Jenrick insisted that Conservative members are “sick of drama.”
He said: “If there’s one thing I’ve learned this summer talking to Conservative Party members [it’s that] they are sick of the drama. They want to end all these excuses. They want to stop the squabbling and the backbiting. They want the party to unite and to be a team. That is what I want to so I am not going to speak ill of fellow Conservatives.
“I think if we do that, that will be the end of the Conservative Party. I want us to actually come together, work together, and if my rival starts to deal with personal insults, that is because she doesn’t really have any policies to talk about. I want to be talking about policies. That is what this debate should be about.”
He added: “And up until this point [in the Conservative leadership contest], by and large, this discussion between us six candidates has been well conducted, and so let’s focus the last few days on serious debates about where our country is actually going. Let’s not go down the rabbit hole of drama and infighting.”
Jenrick went on: “Ultimately, we are grown ups. We should take care of this ourselves. The way I want to conduct myself is to end all of that drama and infighting. The Conservative Party is the world’s oldest political party — hitherto, it’s most successful. It is not a Twitter account. It should not be engaging in infighting. We should just be working to deliver for the party and for the country.”
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