British Indian former home secretary Priti Patel spelt out her priorities and vision in her launch speech for the Conservative Party leadership contest, which faces the first round of eliminations this week.
Dame Priti Patel’s campaign slogan of “Experience-Strength-Unity” is envisioned to spotlight the key aspects of her leadership pitch, which she elaborated on in her speech in London last week. She reiterated her pledge to get the Tories “back to winning ways” after the party suffered its worst general election drubbing on July 4.
“We will work with humility to earn back your trust and we will be one united team with one voice promoting our shared values, serving our nation and we will unite to win,” she pledged.
The Gujarati heritage Member of Parliament for Witham, Essex, and Indian Diaspora Champion said that she had a “core of steel” after a “lifetime of public service”.
“We are a patriotic party, a national party who believes in the union and the matters which concern hard-working people every single day. And I will lead us from opposition to government, so that we can serve the British people again and give them back the freedoms and the dignity that Labour will take away from them,” said Patel.
“I am absolutely determined to ensure that we become that election-winning machine all over again, regardless of who our political opponents are across the political spectrum, whether it’s Reform, the Lib Dems, the Greens, because it varies across the country,” she added.
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On September 4, six candidates in the race to replace Rishi Sunak as acting Opposition Leader – including former Tory ministers James Cleverly, Tom Tugendhat, Kemi Badenoch, Mel Stride and Robert Jenrick – will be narrowed down to five and then Tory MPs will be tasked with whittling the finalists down to four with a second vote set for September 9.
The four remaining candidates will then battle it out with Tory members at the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham, scheduled between September 29 and October 2. Tory MPs will then vote on October 9 and 10 to eliminate two more candidates, leaving a final duo who will face an online ballot of Tory members. After that online vote closes on October 31, Sunak’s successor will then be announced on November 2.