The race to become the next Conservative Party leader is coming to a head with candidates whittled down to four. As Leader of the Opposition, the MP chosen will lead the Conservative Party’s responses to Labour proposals as well as leading election campaigns.
So what will happen next and what do the candidates believe?
The election process
The process started with six Conservative MPs competing to lead the Conservative Party. In September, Priti Patel and Mel Stride were eliminated from the process as the candidates with the lowest support from fellow MPs.
In October, the parliamentary party will pick just two candidates who will be subject to a final vote by Conservative Party members. The MP with the most votes will be announced on 2 November and become the Conservative Party leader.
The four remaining candidates, in alphabetical order, are: Kemi Badenoch, James Cleverly, Robert Jenrick and Tom Tugendhat.
But where do they stand on issues of life, family, freedom and foundations? Let’s look at their voting records and public statements.
Kemi Badenoch
Badenoch is the Member of Parliament for North West Essex, and was first elected in 2017.
She has a mixed record voting on issues to do with abortion:
- Badenoch has been absent for several key votes, including votes that imposed abortion on Northern Ireland.
- She voted against allowing abortion pills to be posted without an in-person consultation as a permanent measure in March 2022.
- She also voted against introducing ‘buffer zones’ making it illegal to offer support or pray around abortion clinics in October 2022.
- However, in 2021 she voted in favour of regulations to give the Northern Ireland Secretary new powers to impose commissioning abortion services in Northern Ireland, and again in 2022 in favour of increasing those powers. She also voted in favour of a motion to impose teaching about abortion on schools in Northern Ireland in 2023.
Badenoch’s views are unclear when it comes to euthanasia and assisted suicide. There have been no significant votes on the topic in parliament since she has become an MP and she has made no clear public statements.
When it comes to issues of marriage and family, she has a generally unpromising record:
- She was not an MP when same-sex ‘marriage’ was introduced in 2013 but has said that she supports it. She was absent from the votes in 2019 to introduce it in Northern Ireland.
- She did, however, defend the right of Kate Forbes to oppose same-sex ‘marriage’ when Forbes was campaigning to lead the Scottish National Party.
- Badenoch was absent from the vote on no-fault divorce in 2020.
Nevertheless, she has a positive record on issues relating to gender:
Badenoch argued in 2023 that gender-affirming care for children is ‘a form of conversion therapy’. She nevertheless kept saying that she intended to bring forward legislation to ban conversion therapy, which is in fact a ban on consensual conversations.
Badenoch is married to a Catholic man with whom she has three children. She has described herself as “an honorary or associate member of the Catholic Church.” When asked whether religion plays a part in her politics, she replied “Not particularly, no. I define myself as a cultural Christian. My grandfather was a reverend.” She added: “So I’m agnostic really, but I was brought up with cultural Christian values.”
James Cleverly
James Cleverly is the Member of Parliament for Braintree, and he was first elected in 2015.
Cleverly’s record is poor on the issue of abortion:
- He has been absent for several key votes on abortion, including votes to impose abortion on Northern Ireland and the vote on abortion buffer zones.
- In 2021, he voted in favour of new regulations to give the Northern Ireland Secretary powers to impose the commissioning of abortion services in Northern Ireland.
- In 2018, Cleverly expressed his support on Twitter (now X) for a ten minute rule bill on abortion sponsored by Diana Johnson MP which proposed to decriminalise abortion.
- As Home Secretary earlier this year, he expressed his support for censorship zones outside abortion centres stating: “It is clearly unacceptable for anyone to be harassed or distressed simply for exercising their legal right to access abortion services. I am committed to ensuring that women in England and Wales feel safe and protected whilst exercising their legal right to access abortion services.”
When it comes to marriage and family, Cleverly has an equally poor record:
- He voted in favour of no-fault divorce in 2020.
- He was absent for votes on same-sex ‘marriage’ in Northern Ireland.
- He was not an MP when same-sex ‘marriage’ was introduced.
- However, in a 2005 blog post he expressed his support of same-sex ‘marriage’.
He also has a relatively weak stance on transgender issues. During an appearance on Question Time in 2018, he responded to a trans woman calling for gender recognition reform by saying: “I am a Conservative because I believe in personal choice, personal freedom, personal responsibility, and I think this is the natural evolution of those principles.”
This adds up to Cleverly probably being the most pro-LGBT of the leadership candidates.
A lone positive in Cleverly’s record on these issues is that in 2015, he voted against allowing terminally ill people to be given assistance to end their lives. This was the most recent attempt in parliament to make assisted suicide legal.
Robert Jenrick
Robert Jenrick is the Member of Parliament for Newark, and he was first elected in a by-election in 2014.
On end of life issues, Jenrick’s record is mixed – he voted in favour of legalising assisted suicide in 2015 but has since said that he has changed his mind.
But he has sadly failed to protect children at the beginning of their lives:
- He voted for censorship zones around abortion clinics.
- He voted in favour of making pills-by-post abortion schemes permanent.
- He voted in favour of allowing the creation of three parent embryos in 2015.
- He voted against explicitly banning sex-selective abortions.
- He also voted to approve regulations to impose teaching about abortion on schools in Northern Ireland.
His single pro-life vote was in 2018 when he voted against an amendment to pressure the government to change abortion legislation in Northern Ireland.
On issues relating to marriage and family, Jenrick was absent from the vote on no-fault divorce in 2020. He was also absent for a vote on same-sex ‘marriage’ in Northern Ireland.
Jenrick said in 2021 that being a woman is a biological matter and that he agreed with Liz Truss saying that “women do have vaginas.”
In 2023, he expressed caution over banning conversion therapy, arguing that balance was needed and that parents or other trusted adults should not be criminalised for providing advice and support. Earlier this year, he was one of only 15 MPs to vote against a motion to move the Conversion Practices (Prohibition) Bill to a second reading.
Jenrick has not been clear about his own religious beliefs, but it is understood that his daughters are being brought up in the Jewish faith.
Tom Tugendhat
Tom Tugendhat is the Member of Parliament for Tonbridge, and was first elected in 2015.
Tugendhat voted against allowing assisted suicide for terminally ill people in 2015.
However, his record on abortion is not favourable:
- He voted in favour of imposing abortion on Northern Ireland in 2019.
- He voted in favour of empowering a UK minister to facilitate abortions in Northern Ireland and to protect women from anti-abortion protestors in 2021.
- He was absent from most other votes on abortion, including the vote to make pills-by-post abortions a permanent measure in 2022, and the vote to introduce buffer zones around abortion clinics in 2022.
His record on marriage is also poor, having voted in favour of no-fault divorce in 2020 and in favour of introducing same sex ‘marriage’ in Northern Ireland in 2019.
When asked about transgenderism in an interview on Sky News in 2022, he said we need to “move on” from this discussion. He said: “It is one of those debates that demonstrates why we need to move on because it’s really easy to make division where we need unity.” He added: “A woman is an adult human female, but that doesn’t mean in any way [that] trans women have any less respect or any fewer rights… we must never deny the reality of what it is to be a biological woman but we must respect people who are in a different gender identity than their body may have afforded them.”
He is said to have supported a full trans-inclusive ban on so-called conversion therapy.
Tugendhat is a Roman Catholic and a member of the Conservative Christian Fellowship.
Pray for faith and repentance in the Conservative Party
As can be seen, the remaining candidates to lead the Conservative Party have flawed voting records, at best.
This is without considering some of the concerning votes that they have in common – for example, all the candidates voted to impose Covid vaccinations on healthcare workers in 2021.
Like the other main parties, the leadership is a long way from clearly upholding life, family, freedom and our nation’s Christian foundations. Let’s pray that whoever is chosen would come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ and increasingly follow in his ways.
We need to continue sharing that Jesus Christ is good news for all and that his ways are perfect, bringing life.
