A top Tory MP has revealed why he’s backing Kemi Badenoch to be the next Tory leader, as the race heats up before nominations close this afternoon.
Shadow cabinet minister Andrew Bowie came out this morning as Ms Badenoch’s fourth public backer, after she entered the race last night.
The shadow veterans minister told GB News that his frontbench colleague is “exactly what the Conservative Party needs”.
He told viewers: “I’ve known Kemi for years, I’ve got huge respect for what she achieved in government, and I think she is exactly what the Conservative Party needs if we are to renew and take the fight to the Labour Party and present a credible option for the British people as an alternative government in four or five years time”.
Mr Bowie pointed to Ms Badenoch’s stall as set out in many newspapers this morning, in which she sets out “how she plans on renewing and engaging with the membership, on growing our base and standing up for conservative values in this country”.
“I think that’s a conversation we need to have, and I fully trust Kemi as the person who can lead that conversation and take us back to where we need to be for Great Britain and that’s in government”.
Asked by the GB News host what Conservative values actually mean, Mr Bowie agreed that most voters “have lost track” of what his party stands for.
He blasted the previous few years, arguing: “We have talked a good game but governed poorly”.
“It’s up to us to investigate what that is, to speak to our members, those people that support us, to those people who want to vote Conservative but we have not given them that option over the last few years.”
He also pledged that Ms Badenoch will spend the next few weeks “engaging with those very people”.
Mr Bowie also promised that with Kemi Badenoch as leader, the Tory Party will undertake an examination of why the Tory Party matters, what they stand for and what the Government should be doing rather than what it is doing.
He said is is “very proud to support her”.
Last night Ms Badenoch stormed out of the gates and into the race, confirming what had been widely understood for some weeks.
She is the last candidate to announce her intention to stand, as Suella Braverman dramatically said she no longer had an interest in leading a party that has come to deride her as “mad”.
Writing in The Times, Ms Badenoch said the party deserved to lose in the General Election because it was “unsure of who we were, what we were for and how we could build a new country”.
The former Business Secretary said the party needed to “renew” itself, pledging that it will start speaking “the truth again” on everything from controlling immigration to reforming public services.
She wrote: “The country will not vote for us if we don’t know who we are or what we want to be”.
“That is why I am seeking the leadership of the Conservative Party to renew our movement and, with the support of the British people, to get it to work for our country again.”
Ms Badenoch has four public backers so far, the same number as Robert Jenrick, James Cleverly, Priti Patel and Mel Stride.
