Kemi Badenoch dismisses suggestions Robert Jenrick threatens her Tory leadership
Kemi Badenoch brushed off suggestions her former Conservative leadership rival Robert Jenrick is a threat to her authority.
The Tory leader insisted she has a “great team”, which she said is focused on its local elections campaign, when asked about reports Mr Jenrick added some 600 people to a WhatsApp group on Thursday.
Eyebrows were raised in Westminster about the move, first reported by the Guido Fawkes website, which led to speculation shadow justice secretary Mr Jenrick was canvassing Conservative opinion about the future leadership of the party.
He was the runner-up to Mrs Badenoch in the Tory leadership contest held following last summer’s general election.
Asked if she had been added to the WhatsApp group, from which many people were soon after removed, Mrs Badenoch said: “Yes, and then no, I think is the correct answer to that.”
Marathon
Speaking during a local election campaign visit to Cambridgeshire, the Conservative leader also told broadcasters: “I think he’s running a marathon. That’s what I’ve been told.
“I don’t really understand yet what happened with the WhatsApp group, but it’s not the first time this week that loads of journalists and politicians have been added to a WhatsApp group. Seems to be the trend these days.”
Pressed whether she thought Mr Jenrick was a threat to her leadership, Mrs Badenoch said: “I have a great team, and I’m leading a team that is uniting the Conservative Party.
“What we’re really focused on now is ensuring that people understand that voting Conservative at the local elections is the only credible option.
“Look at Birmingham, where rubbish is piled high on the streets, rats running around. I’m really worried about what will happen if loads of councils are no longer Conservative-run.”
The Conservative leader has sought to cast her party as competent and careful when it comes to running councils during a series of visits while canvassing for seats in town halls across England.
She has however admitted the May 1 elections will be challenging for her party, and also warned voters “you will have to live with what you vote for” if they choose to back insurgent party Reform UK over the Tories.
Costs
Mrs Badenoch’s Cambridgeshire visit saw her touring a surgical robotics company’s factory, where she greeted her party’s Cambridgeshire and Peterborough mayoral election candidate Paul Bristow with a hug.
On the factory floor, Mrs Badenoch saw a series of small scissors, hooks to dissect tissue and graspers, and later a console which surgeons can use to control the robots.
She heard the business uses triple glazing and solar panels and replied: “In terms of electricity costs, you’ve been able to minimise your own impact.”
Mrs Badenoch also saw robotics arms which were undergoing tests. She held a component which allows the machines to replicate the movement of a human wrist.
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Well, she is not doing herself any favours but the cons are bought and paid for by the GOP now. Doesn’t matter who leads this sorry bunch of idiots, it will be US policy they push, all the way down to the the Welsh Tory leader that likes to worship at tghe feet of a convicted felon and abuser.
Anyone see Kemi when she went to see Vance (who is now targeting lawyer’s and academics and innocent people)? That skipped under the radar.
If Ms Badenoch really wants to renew her party I suggest she starts with a unconditional apology for Thatcher.
Johnson sacked the decent Cons (yes, there were a few). What is now the Cons front bench would never have seen the front bench with a capable leadership. Until they lose the GOP yoke, they are reform in all but name.
Indeed his sinister 2019 purge of the moderates was the Tory wolf shedding its centre right woollen coat.
Exactly right, the hard right on both sides have infiltrated the mainstream right parties on both sides of the Atlantic making their politics become the norm and shifting the Overton window further rightward. There was plenty to criticise about Reagan and Thatcher but they would be spinning in their grave if they saw what their respective parties have evolved into today.
On the positive side the politically homeless centre right are slowly giving up on the idea that their party will ever come back to them and are available for the taking. The obvious home in the Lib Dems but Plaid could choose to move to the centre and hoover them up.
Kemi Badenoch is effectively a seat warmer. She knows all too well that knifes are being sharpened in the shadows by far-right extremists in her party who favour Robert Jenrick. And the closer Reform UK are in the polls, especially seeing soon there will be English Council elections, those Tory MPs in constituencies with small majorities will start to go into self preservation mode meaning those infamous letters will start arriving the nearer the next general election gets to remove her and replace her with someone more “ethnically” pleasing to the Jam & Jerusalem brigade.
Anybody out there give two hoots who runs the lame-duck Conservative and Unionist party?
They had 14 years to do something helpful and all we got was Brexit…
…that turned out well didn’t it…?