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The four candidates for Tory leadership have abandoned the centre ground as they embark on a right-wing arms race to win over the party faithful.
On the second day of the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham, Robert Jenrick ramped up his anti-migration rhetoric, Tom Tugendhat said he doesn’t accept the term “climate emergency”, Kemi Badenoch re-emphasised her support for family values following a row over maternity pay, while James Cleverly waded in on trans issues.
The four candidates are parading themselves in front of party members at their annual conference – attending leadership hustings, Q&A sessions, fringe events, and drinks receptions – in what has been described as a beauty contest to shore up support.
The rightward turn came despite a warning from former prime minister Theresa May that the party must not try to be like Nigel Farage and to remember it lost more seats to the Liberal Democrats. She urged the candidates to try to win back the centre ground but her appeal appears to have fallen on deaf ears.
At a rally on the fringes of the conference on Monday, Mr Jenrick told supporters the party must decide to leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) “or die”, warning that remaining in the convention means “subjecting our people to dangerous criminals on our streets”.
“Our party doesn’t have a future if it fails to fix this problem,” Mr Jenrick warned.
Ms Badenoch continued to wade through the fallout from her claim that maternity pay in the UK is “excessive” after backtracking on the remarks on Sunday, saying “of course” she does “believe in maternity pay”.
On Monday, she went further, warning that people in Britain are “scared to have families”.
Throwing her weight behind the family unit, the former women and equalities minister said: “We should find a way to make life easier for those who are starting families and not act like families are an inconvenience.”
Speaking at a Conservative Women’s Organisation event, she said people “need to talk about families like … the amazing thing that they are, that having a family is probably the most meaningful thing that any of us are ever going to do”.
Mr Tugendhat, meanwhile, said he doesn’t accept the term “climate emergency”, dubbing Ed Miliband’s plan to establish a publicly owned clean energy company as “completely insane”.
Speaking on the main conference stage, the leadership contender said Mr Miliband’s policies are going to “destroy Britain”, adding: “Every single project he’s got is designed to make electricity and power more expensive, harder to get and to make us more vulnerable to foreign dictators.”
The former security minister has been seen as the flag bearer for the One Nation group on the left of the Tories but has used his campaign to pivot heavily to the right suggesting that he would leave the ECHR like Jenrick.
Addressing Mr Miliband’s energy reforms, he told Tory members: “His project on GB energy is utter rubbish. He’s creating a public sector energy to compete against the private sector and therefore make bills more expensive. It’s completely insane.”
Asked if he accepts the term “climate emergency”, Mr Tugendhat said: “I don’t accept that term. What I think is that we need to make sure that we are getting energy independence and energy sovereignty back.”
Meanwhile, Mr Cleverly warned that children should not be allowed to “dictate” their gender identity to adults, instead saying adults were meant to teach children about the world, as their brains are not yet fully developed.
The former minister compared the slow biological development of humans brains with deer, which he said are “pretty much ready to rock and roll” within hours of birth.
Asked his opinion on teenagers socially transitioning without their parents’ knowledge at an event on the fringes of the conference, he said “childhood, adolescence and puberty is really confusing, hard and difficult” for most people.
The Braintree MP added: “I clearly missed the memo when we collectively decided that children dictate to adults and adults don’t teach children, because that strikes me as a bit of a recipe for disaster.
“We know, and this is not a criticism, it is just a statement of biological fact, human children are born with not fully developed brains.
“It is how we get an animal with a very large skull through the pelvic bone of a woman.”
