Former Badenoch backer endorses Jenrick in Tory leadership race

A former minister is the latest to come out in support of Robert Jenrick in the Conservative leadership campaign after having backed Kemi Badenoch last year. 
 
Neil O’Brien called for Mr Jenrick as the best candidate in relation to immigrant and capturing the Reform party voters; he also described him as the one who has the knowledge of the middle Britain. 

But Mrs Badenoch attracted two enormous supporters of her over the weekend, namely Laura Trott, a shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, and Tony Abbott, ex-Prime minister of Australia. 
 
Tory MPs vote this week, six are being whittled down to five tomorrow and four the next week. 
 
The other contenders include, Dame Priti Patel, James Cleverly, Mel Stride and Tom Tugendhat. These expectations are expected to be removed significantly in Westminster tomorrow where Mr Stride the shadow work and pensions secretary is most likely to be ousted out of the competition early Wednesday. 
 
But a campaign source said: “Mel is doing well on the hustings and engaging the colleagues across the party. In the parliamentary ballot, we are sure the numbers are there. 
 
Mr O’Brien also rightly traded his ministerial place in the levelling up department side by side with Mrs Badenoch until their mutual exit from Boris Johnson government in 2022. He had been therefore amongst the most frequent proponents of her candidature that is ellen’s to replace mr johnson. 
 
In The Telegraph , Mr O’Brien described him as ‘smart, fresh, charismatic’ but said Mr Jenrick could ‘reboot’ the conservatives. 
 
“The reason why I am supporting Robert Jenrick is because we have to fundamentally change this party through this leadership election. ” ‘I want to emphasize once again that we need this unity of the party but unity presupposes clarity, and there can only be a clear position. . . There is a requirement for someone starting from the centre ground for Reform, but having an actual experience and tangible proposals concerning the matters that created the Reform movement. 
 
“When Robert resigned on immigration ground it demonstrated that he is a man of principles which goes a long way in giving him the authority to discuss immigration. ” 
 
The provision of the speech in central London on Sunday, Mr Jenrick will aim at confronting Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader by saying that the government is ‘declaring war on the middle class’. 
 
“Today, the tone will be different, but the message will be the same: so far, the guiding principle of Labour’s economic policy has been wealth destruction,” he will say. “Labour has put thousands of jobs at risk in the North Sea because of their ad-hoc net zero targets, and is likely to crash its tax rises on the high-earning again. ” 
 
It came as Ms Trott compared Mrs Badenoch to Margaret Thatcher and urged fellow Conservative members of parliament to back her former Cabinet colleague. 

Ms Trott insisted in her article for the Telegraph that the conditions of the next general election may resemble those of the 1979 election in which Thatcher ousted the Labour party. 
 
“We had a realistic, a genuine, a committed woman leader who was not afraid to be truthful, who did not avoid making difficult choices and who did not shirk her principles – we need her back today and I see her in Kemi Badenoch. ” 
 
Another big source of support for the Mrs Badenoch’s campaign came through the support from Mr Abbott. He had a seat on the Board of Trade when she was at its helm during the time the British joined the Trans-Pacific Partnership. 
 
To be admitted to what was in the first instance a rather narrowly regional trade organization was an enormous achievement for Britain and a clear demonstration of the significance of global Britain in the world , the spokesman said. “It was also vindication for the Secretary of State after a lot of sweat and effort in preparing the honorable’s address. ” 
 
Mr Abbott said he would give whoever leads the Tories his ‘110 per cent support as a fellow conservative’, but singled out Mrs Badenoch for ‘always advocating for a racism-free society of opportunity, liberty and the rule of law’. 
 
In his first public leadership speech of the campaign, Mr Cleverly on Saturday said that Sir Keir and Reform leader Nigel Farage are two wing of the same bird. 
 
He said: “They both believe that we are past our peak, and they are equally negative about United Kingdom. ” 
 
“Starmer reckons life was fine before we left the EU, whereas Farage reckons it was fine before we joined: they are both wrong. ” 
 
He added: “We require a clear vision of a robust, optimistic and self-governing contemporary Britain to counter Starmer and Farage’s pessimistic belief in this prosperous country. ”