The Conservative leadership election looks wide open, with candidates from almost every ideological wing of the party. With a nation of Tories and fiscal conservatives, Brexiteers and others, there will be a range of viewpoints for MPs and campaigners to consider.
Here’s a rundown of the runners and riders—and what we know about their political and social positions.
Tom Tugendhat
The ex-soldier won the backing of Damien Green, chairman of One Nation’s Conservative MPs group, giving him the lead over the more Tory-leaning Jeremy Hunt.
Launching her bid with an op-ed in the Daily Telegraph, Tugendhat struck a unifying note, pledging to “bridge the Brexit divide” but also calling for an immediate reversal of the recent increase in National Insurance – which Labor has also opposed.
Jeremy Hunt
As chair of the Health and Social Care Select Committee during the Covid crisis, Hunt stood firm on health policy and patient safety, about which he recently wrote a book.
But his policy pitch when he ran for the leadership in 2019 included raising the national insurance threshold – a tax cut for low- to middle-income earners – and increasing defense spending to 2.5% of GDP, something which Boris Johnson has also recently advocated. He was also less hard-line on Brexit, speaking out against a no-deal option.
Penny Mordaunt
An ardent Brexiter, Mordaunt infuriated others during the 2016 referendum campaign by wrongly claiming the UK would not have a veto on Turkey joining the EU.
On economic policy, however, she is to the left of the Tories, supporting food banks (dubbed ‘pantries’) in her Portsmouth North constituency and pushing for more government action on the cost of living crisis. She is also an ardent defender of LGBT rights.
Sajid Javid
Javid presented himself as a low-tax Tory after resigning as chancellor in 2020, but after replacing the disgraced Matt Hancock as health secretary, he pushed hard for more spending on health and social care and signed off on the plan to increase the national providing contributions for its financing.
He also focused on health care inequities in his latest post, and previously emphasized the importance of colleges for further education, having attended one himself.
Nadhim Zahawi
Perhaps unsurprisingly for an independently wealthy former businessman – the second richest MP in parliament after Sunak – the new chancellor has already hinted that he would like to see business tax cut.
He also suggested there could be other tax cuts, although Johnson’s interim cabinet has since vowed to keep major fiscal decisions on hold until a new leader is elected.
Rishi Sunak
Sunak’s politics are very dry on tax and spending: like Philip Hammond and George Osborne before him, he champions the importance of getting public finances under control, in his case even when that means raising taxes in the face of an economic downturn.
He is socially liberal, although he has recruited anti-revivalist Oliver Dowden to his campaign team and is a fan of American-style entrepreneurship.
Liz Truss
Truss campaigned to remain in 2016 but has since turned enthusiastically Brexiter and has taken a hard line in recent months on the Northern Ireland protocol.
Like many of the candidates, she is expected to ask for a lower tax burden. She has also long been a champion of a right-wing version of individual freedom, memorably hailing a generation of “Uber-driving, Airbnb-driving, Deliveroo-eating freedom fighters.”
Suella Braverman
The attorney-general began her leadership presentation by pledging to “get rid of all this woke rubbish” and she also said there was an “entitlement culture” in the UK that had “gone out of control”.
A staunch Brexiteer, she recently won plaudits from the party’s right wing by giving legal approval to the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill, despite many experts suggesting it breaches international law.
Kemi Badenoch
The former equalities minister, who is known for her willingness to embrace controversy over culture war issues, said she was coming forward because she wanted to “tell the truth”.
Writing in the Times, the Saffron Walden MP attacked “identity politics” and said Boris Johnson was “a symptom of the problems we face, not the cause of them”.
She added that she supports lower taxes “to stimulate growth and productivity and accompanied by strict spending discipline.”
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