It may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but what about a Priti Patel T-shirt? Or maybe a Kemi Badenoch water bottle? Or a Robert Jenrick mug? The Tories may have hit rock bottom with voters, but the six leadership candidates battling to become the next party leader clearly think they still have plenty to sell to the faithful.
With the Conservative hierarchy agonising about how to prevent the contest to succeed Rishi Sunak turning into an embarrassing bunfight at their conference in Birmingham next month, candidates are being kept well apart wherever possible – and will even be given their own individual stalls in the exhibition hall, where they will be encouraged to promote their ideas to delegates and offer their own branded merchandise to anyone who will buy it.
“Everyone will have their own merch: hats, caps, T-shirts, tote bags, that kind of stuff,” said one source involved in the campaign. “People really care about it, they get very competitive about it. Everyone is getting the merch ready. It is appearing at hustings already. I think Mel Stride is even giving out cakes and cookies. Priti has T-shirts, caps, tote bags.”
Kemi Badenoch, who came out top in a YouGov poll of members on Friday, has set the pace in the merchandise stakes too, having put a range of items on her leadership website, renewal 2030.co.uk, though without her name or image. Her campaign sweatshirts can be snapped up for £35, water bottles for £15 and an upscale notebook for £8.50.
“I think we damn well should get our own stands,” said an individual involved with one of the campaigns, “given that we are handing the party £50,000 each just to take part”. The final two will then have to stump up another £150,000 each. The party – short on cash after the election – will therefore pull in £500,000 in total, which it says is to cover the costs of hustings and other expenses.
Emails with strict instructions about what the contenders must do, and about how to keep things as civil as possible, have being going out from party HQ to the six hopefuls – Patel, Badenoch, Jenrick, James Cleverly, Tom Tugendhat and Stride – over recent days. They have been told they must all do at least one tour of the exhibition hall, to chat to stallholders and keep them happy, and attend a string of dinners and drinks parties with donors and the party treasurer. To help with segregation, they will all be given their own offices in the International Convention Centre, where the conference will take place between 29 September and 2 October.
“I think the candidates will be on their own stands some of the time, but then will ask MPs and peers who support them to stand in,” said a party insider. “It is the first time it will have been run anything like this.”
Detailed issues about the timetable and how to arrange keynote speeches are yet to be decided, as is the question of what to do about Sunak’s appearances. Should he make a big leader’s speech, or take a back seat and let the candidates take centre stage?
Another party source said: “My advice would be that Rishi needs to do something early at conference so you don’t get a narrative of ‘Where is Rishi, is he in hiding?’. Then he should hand over to the candidates to have their turns, then maybe he does something at the end, though more low-key than a normal leader’s speech.”
One plan is for Sunak – who announced he would stand down after the party’s catastrophic election defeat, but would stay on until his successor was chosen – to speak briefly on the opening Sunday to get things under way, then for Monday and Tuesday to be set aside for speeches by the candidates still in the contest.
On 4 September, Tory MPs will vote to reduce the six contenders in the race to four. The conference will then serve as a four-day, four-way beauty parade. Hustings before MPs will take place between 8 and 10 October, before voting that will reduce the candidates to two. Hustings will then take place around the country before a full vote of Conservative members is held, with the new leader expected to be announced on 2 November.
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Tory party chiefs are determined to stage the events in a way that avoids conflict breaking out on stage. Although GB News and other TV outlets are pushing to have live debates with all four candidates at the same time, organisers are trying to avoid these so candidates do not start laying into one another in front of the cameras.
“I think the lesson from the election that came back on doorsteps is that most people thought we just hated each other. We have to avoid that and look responsible,” said a party insider.
Former Tory special adviser Luke Tryl, who now runs the polling organisation More In Common, said: “From the focus groups we’ve run so far, the danger from this leadership contest is that the public come away with the impression it’s a party that is still only speaking to itself rather than the wider public.
“The public wants to know what the Tories are going to do differently on the NHS and cost of living, as well as immigration – the three biggest reasons they say the Tories lost – and yet what the race is focusing on so far are things that come across at best as second-order issues (membership of the European court of human rights) or actively unpopular (scrapping net zero carbon targets).
“At the same time, ask even diehard Tories about the last government and they will tell you they were sick of the infighting and seeming inability to work together.
“The Tories need to convince people they’re willing to deliver hard truths to their party, speak to people’s everyday concerns, rather than engaging in an inward-looking bunfight.”
