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Tory leadership candidate Kemi Badenoch attacked her rival Robert Jenrick’s flagship pledge to take Britain out of the European Convention on Human Rights as a divisive policy that would fuel infighting in the party, as the pair took part in the first televised hustings of the contest.
The live TV event, hosted by GB News in Westminster, took place on Thursday night as the Conservative grassroots began to receive ballots for the contest, which will culminate in a new Tory leader being announced on November 2.
Badenoch appeared to win over the live audience of party members, according to a show of hands and cheers at the end, after a grilling in which she declared “children should be off social media”, adding that it was “very dangerous” and addictive, and should be “for adults”.
The former business secretary also vowed to reverse Labour’s imposition of value added tax on private school fees as one of her first acts if she became prime minister, one of the few concrete policies to which she committed.
Badenoch has argued the Tories must not rush the process of drawing up their policy prospectus, which she said should go back to first principles of Conservatism.
Jenrick’s campaign hit back insisting “politicians should have policies — they do matter. None more so than on immigration.”
During the hustings, Jenrick declared that the Conservatives must focus heavily on winning back trust on immigration, citing it as the reason the party slumped to its worst-ever result at the July general election.
Stressing that the party would “never be in government again” unless it wooed voters who switched to Reform UK or stayed at home on polling day, Jenrick claimed he was the candidate who had left Nigel Farage fearful he would be put “out of business”.
The former communities secretary repeated his vows to cap legal inward net migration at “tens of thousands” of arrivals each year and to take Britain out of the ECHR.
The matter has become a key dividing line between Badenoch and Jenrick. She said she would quit the ECHR “if we need to”, but argued: “It is not a silver bullet.”
Badenoch went on to criticise Jenrick’s ECHR policy as his biggest weakness, saying: “I think it will divide our party. It will mean that the infighting and squabbling will continue. If we want to end the drama, we need to do this the right way.”
She suggested no candidate should be “imposing your views on everybody else” in the party.
She also said the leadership contest was “not a test of who can make the biggest promises”.
Confronted about migration having “ballooned” under his watch as immigration minister, Jenrick insisted he had resigned from that role due to his opposition to Rishi Sunak’s approach to both legal and illegal migration.
However, he suggested all the Tory prime ministers of the last 14 years boasted “great qualities” — apart from Liz Truss.
Quizzed about her combative reputation, Badenoch insisted she did “not like fighting” but was willing to fight on behalf of the party. She styled herself as an “engineer” who would fix the UK’s “broken system”.
The televised event came after a day of eye-catching interventions in the contest by senior Conservatives.
Veteran Tory MP Sir Christopher Chope triggered a backlash after saying that he would not throw his support behind Badenoch because she was “preoccupied with her own children”.
Chope told ITV News that he was supporting Jenrick, praising his energy and highlighting that his children were older. Jenrick’s youngest child is eight, only three years older than Badenoch’s youngest. Both candidates have three children.
Jenrick condemned Chope’s comments as “wrong” and said that whether he or Badenoch led the party “we’ll both be able to balance” work and family.
Former cabinet minister Michael Gove, meanwhile, warned that Jenrick “looks like a typical Tory politician”, telling the BBC that the public had had enough of “Tory boys” as he praised Badenoch’s “courage”.
A spokesperson for Jenrick’s campaign lashed out at Gove and his “acolytes”, accusing them of being responsible for “so much of the infighting and drama that has led our party to where it is”.
Tory MPs believe that Badenoch is faring better with party members in London and the South, while Jenrick is winning support in the North and Midlands.