On Monday evening, Kemi Badenoch held a drinks do for Conservative MPs. More than 60 gathered in the business and trade secretary’s office on the upper ministerial corridor for the launch of a document outlining how Brexit had been a success. Badenoch made a short speech about how Labour would make the Tories “own Brexit” and they should make the case that it had brought economic gains.
Those present included Badenoch allies, Brexiteer MPs and several spies. “I spotted a couple of whips’ narks,” said one MP who was there. “They’ll have been reporting back on whether Kemi was on message, which she was.”
The most surprising moment came when Penny Mordaunt, the leader of the Commons and the bookmaker’s favourite to take on Badenoch in the next leadership contest, breezed in. Witnesses said there was a brief and pleasant exchange between the two, but MPs close to Badenoch thought it decidedly odd that Mordaunt turned up: “She obviously wanted to see who was there and what the competition was up to.”
While there was the usual warm white wine, Badenoch served no food. Some joked later that this was a rare evening outing for Mordaunt without a buffet of “rubber chicken”, so tireless has she become in working the circuit of constituency association events in what MPs see as a blatant attempt to drum up support for a leadership campaign. Coincidental or not, Mordaunt spent the rest of the week making prominent public interventions.
She also launched into a conspicuous defence of Rishi Sunak, saying he represented “the best of Great Britain”, words greeted with cynicism by MPs. Mordaunt was so over the top that some believed her intervention was designed to wound the prime minister.
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Badenoch is clear, in public and private, that she does not want to be leader before the general election. Even Sunak’s closest aides acknowledge she is not trying to force him out. Which, in the mind of the party establishment, leaves Suella Braverman, the former home secretary, who popped up with yet another article in The Daily Telegraph last week to warn: “The Islamists, the extremists and the antisemites are in charge now … they have bullied our country into submission.”
Her former team of special advisers has been identified as the core of a suspected leadership plot to bring down the prime minister. The group, fronted by Boris Johnson’s former Brexit negotiator Lord Frost, paid for a YouGov poll last month that showed the Tories on course for a landslide election defeat.
The Times reported on Saturday that Frost, Jake Ryan, Braverman’s former special adviser Will Dry, a former aide to Sunak who resigned in November and helped to organise the poll, and Sam Armstrong, another former Tory aide who has denied being linked to the plot, were all seen in the vicinity of Golden Cross House, an office block off Trafalgar Square next to a gay bar called Halfway to Heaven, famous for its drag acts.
The pub would be slumming it for at least one of the group, whose progress around expensive Covent Garden eateries has resulted in the group’s efforts being dubbed “the Sheekey plot” and “the pasta plot”.
Insiders say the participants do not expect to oust Sunak — one of their number put the chances at between 10 per cent and 20 per cent (down from 30 per cent a month ago) — but they believe removing him is the only way of saving Tory MPs from oblivion. They are withering about Badenoch’s refusal to commit to a coup. “She talks about having three young children and wanting it in five years’ time, but there won’t be a party left to inherit unless we do something. And three years into a Labour government, Boris will probably be back anyway.”
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While Badenoch and Braverman are thought to be on friendly terms, the fractious relations between some of their supporters could be a a problem if Sunak were to be forced out. “There can’t be a contest on the right of the party,” one said. “There will have to be a deal so we are united. It would have to be done quickly, with a very quick vote by the membership. It needs to be done in a week.”
Mordaunt, while in no way linked with the group, is more obviously showing an interest in a quick resolution than Badenoch. The reason for this, the plotters believe, is that she — and another contender, the defence secretary, Grant Shapps — are on course to lose their seats, according to the YouGov rebel poll. Mordaunt is defending a majority of under 16,000 in Portsmouth North and is a Labour target. Shapps sits on a cushion of just 11,000 in Welwyn Hatfield.
“Her theory will be that if she gives the party a bounce in national polling, she will be more likely to save her seat and you also get a boost locally if you’re the prime minister,” a rival adviser said.
Mordaunt, who flirted with a leadership bid in 2018 and finished third twice in the two contests in 2022, is not thought to have much of a campaign team, but is popular with the grassroots and can attract support from Brexiteers to the One Nation wing of the party. “She’s an empty vessel for everyone’s dreams,” said a minister. “No one who has worked alongside her is supporting her, because she spends more time thinking about the next job than the one she’s doing.”
Rivals with families or jobs that tie them to Whitehall or send them abroad look jealously at Mordaunt’s freedom of manoeuvre. She and her aides are coy about whether she is in a relationship, but she does not have children, something that means she is free to go around the country every weekend drumming up support. She has a WhatsApp group called “Campaign materials”, though her allies say this is a natural role for a leader of the House, who spends most of her day liaising with MPs.
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Shapps has also been holding drinks dos, dubbed “schnapps with Shapps” and has a WhatsApp group called the “Shapps leadership action plan” with a “Slap” logo. He is best known for running the spreadsheet that tracked supporters for Boris Johnson’s 2019 win. “Grant will have the best spreadsheet,” a minister said, “But he won’t find as many names on it as before.”
The other contender, who was also writing for The Daily Telegraph last week on the need to fix welfare, is Robert Jenrick, the former immigration minister who resigned, arguing that Sunak’s plan to deport migrants was not tough enough. “He’s raising his profile and wants to be the sane right-winger,” said a colleague. “He hasn’t got a prayer if it happens now but he might be in good shape later. His wife is absolutely loaded so he doesn’t need a job, which gives him time to drum up support.”
Liz Truss is also reviving her “fizz with Liz” drinks with MPs in the apparent belief that she can be “queen-maker” in the next leadership contest, though after her trip last week to the United States, where she did an event with Steve Bannon, a former aide to Donald Trump, it is clear she believes she has a more natural audience for her tax-cutting libertarianism there. Insiders say Truss may back Priti Patel, a third woman from the Tory right. MPs think Truss wants to be Patel’s chancellor or shadow chancellor.
Badenoch’s position as the putative frontrunner was confirmed on Wednesday when Sir Keir Starmer used five of his six questions at prime minister’s questions to put Sunak on the spot about her intervention following the Sunday Times report about her firing of Henry Staunton as chairman of the Post Office.
The Labour leader sought to drive a wedge between the prime minister and his business secretary, asking Sunak to repeat her words. Sunak notably twice refused to do so, though his team seem to believe Badenoch was right on the detail. But Tory Kremlinologists also saw it as an attempt to kneecap a future rival.
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Badenoch’s allies see a pugnacious politician who will not take things lying down. Others worry that she is like a rugby or American football player who “seeks out contact” and wants to run through her opponents rather than go around them. “Kemi has never seen a wall she doesn’t want to drive through,” said a semi-admiring MP who is tempted to back her. “But that may be what we need. In opposition you have to be a bulldozer to get anywhere. Penny will find out quite quickly that you have to use the sword, not just hold it aloft.”
In Downing Street there was consternation that Badenoch had come out fighting so hard. “I just don’t think politicians ever win those battles,” said one senior figure. “Politicians never get the benefit of the doubt from the public, even when they are in the right and can prove it.”
But they are privately unconcerned by Braverman, believing that if she had the support to oust Sunak, she would have done so. Braverman, while aware of the suspected plotters’ activities, also thinks they will come to nothing.
Whatever happens, the plotters have opened up a discussion of the leadership and made MPs view everything through that prism. “We’ve given people space to talk about this,” one said.
Even when it emerged that Badenoch had fallen out with her one-time mentor, Michael Gove, after he had an affair with one of her friends and broke up their marriage, some saw the briefing as a ploy to make it appear as though Badenoch was no longer in the control of Gove. Allies of Badenoch, who worked with her during the time of her volcanic fury at Gove, laugh at this suggestion.
Tim Shipman’s odds for the top job
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Grant Shapps, defence secretary 33-1
Robert Jenrick, ex-immigration minister 16-1
Suella Braverman, ex-home secretary 8-1
Penny Mordaunt, Commons leader 4-1
Kemi Badenoch, business secretary 6-4
