Priti Patel becomes fifth to declare Conservative leadership candidacy

Lady Priti Patel has said she will be leader of the Conservative party, making her the fifth Conservative MP to throw her hat into the ring.

She joins Honey Step, Tom Tugendhat, Tiago Intelligently It is Robert Jenrick in the race to replace Rishi Sunak as conservative leader.

She wrote on Twitter: “I’m running to be the new leader of the Conservative Party. We must unite to win!

“I can lead us in opposition and unite our party and prepare for the next elections, with unity, experience and strength.”

She said she could provide the “experienced and strong” leadership needed to unite the different Tory factions, in an article for The Telegraph on Saturday.

As leader, she would use the “huge talent pool…of Conservative Party members” to “address the big challenges for which Labour, the Liberal Democrats and Reform have no answers”, she wrote.

She said the party was a “popular movement” that should work from the bottom up rather than the top down.

She wrote that “rebuilding trust with an electorate that has stopped listening to us will be difficult” and that the party must “honestly reflect on what went wrong” while avoiding a “soap opera of finger-pointing and self-indulgence.”

Dame Priti became an MP in 2010 and served in cabinet roles under Theresa May and Boris Johnsonas secretary of international development and secretary of the Interior, respectively.

In her article, she repeated the language used by Johnson when writing about turning Conservative values ​​into “oven-ready” policies and getting the party “ready” to win.

Johnson will not support any candidate in the Conservative leadership contest, the Telegraph previously reported, citing an unnamed ally of the former prime minister.

Dame Priti is a long-standing and prominent Eurosceptic figure on the right of the party.

As interior minister, she launched a points-based immigration system and signed the agreement with Rwanda to send asylum seekers to the country.

She resigned as Home Secretary after Liz Truss became Conservative leader.

Shadow Communities Secretary Kemi Badenochthe bookmakers’ favorite to succeed Sunak, and former home secretary Suella Braverman are expected to stand before nominations close at 2.30pm on Monday.

Candidates need one proposer, one supporter and eight other supporters to run for office.

The parliamentary party will narrow the field to four, who will present their position at the Conservative Party conference, which runs from 29 September to 2 October.

The two finalists, chosen by the parliamentary party, will then go to party voting in an online ballot that will end on October 31st with the result announced on November 2nd.

Dame Priti is the least popular candidate, with minus 28 points and seven points, respectively, according to a Savanta survey carried out between 19 and 21 July.

Tugendhat is the most popular potential candidate among the public, minus three points, and among 2024 Conservative voters, minus 21 points, the poll shows.

Cleverly is second in the race, Savanta’s findings suggest, minus nine points among the public and minus 19 points among 2024 conservative voters.