Conservative leadership hustings to be held in Wales

Emily Price

The Conservatives leadership hustings where candidates will showcase their vision for the party’s future will be held in Wales.

The event due to take place on September 25 will be held in the Cardiff area – with details of the exact venue being revealed to ticket holders closer to the day.

It will be hosted by South Wales Central area Conservatives and chaired by a senior Conservative volunteer.

Conservative leadership candidates hoping to succeed Rishi Sunak include Kemi Badenoch, James Cleverly, Robert Jenrick and Tom Tugendhat.

Conservative members will hear from the candidates to help them make “an informed decision” about who they vote for.

There will be a Q&A from the audience, giving them an opportunity to ask questions to the candidates directly.

Ballot

Conservative MPs will carry out further rounds of voting to select two final candidates for the party’s grassroots to choose between, with the result of the members’ ballot announced on November 2.

Mrs Badenoch, widely tipped as the bookmakers’ favourite, has sought to position herself as someone who will govern further to the political right, claiming at launch event that the Tories “talked right but governed left, sounding like Conservatives but acting like Labour”.

Mr Jenrick, widely seen as her closest rival for the job, has sought to centre his campaign on immigration, with a promise to introduce a binding cap on the number of legal migrants and to leave the European Convention on Human Rights.

Former security minister Mr Tugendhat’s pitch is for a reset with the public, based around restoring honesty to politics, while Mr Cleverly, the shadow home secretary, has said his priorities as prime minister would be to boost national security, reduce migration and restore “confidence in capitalism”.