ReutersConservative leadership contender Kemi Badenock said “not all cultures are equally valid” when it comes to deciding who should be allowed into the UK.
In an article published in the Sunday Telegraph at the start of the Conservative Party conference, she said: “Our country is not a hostel where people come to make money. It is our home.”
“We choose to welcome people who we want to share our values and contribute to our society.”
Badenock, Robert Jenrick, James Cleverly and Tom Tugendhat are all vying for the Conservative leadership, with Rishi Sunak stepping down after the Conservatives lost the general election this summer.
All four candidates will have the chance to make their case in Birmingham over the next four days, with each contender delivering four 20-minute speeches on Wednesday.
MPs then whittled that down to two seats, with Conservative members getting the final say in an online vote. Results will be announced on November 2.
In her Telegraph articleBadenock has proposed what she calls “stubborn” immigration policies.
She called for an overhaul of the system to ensure every civil servant, not just the Home Office, made it a priority and did not rule out withdrawing from the European Convention on Human Rights.
She also called for a better “integration strategy” that emphasizes British values and culture.
Drawing on her immigrant background—she was born in Britain but spent her childhood in Nigeria—Badnock writes: “Culture is not just food or clothing. It is also customs that may be at odds with British values.
“We cannot be naive enough to believe that immigrants will automatically abandon ancestral racial hostilities at the border, or that all cultures are equally valid. But this is not the case.
“I’m shocked, for example, by the number of recent immigrants to the UK who hate Israel. Such sentiments have no place here.”
Meanwhile, James Cleverley has laid out a plan to give Conservative members a greater say in policymaking and candidate selection.
He said: “The truth is we need to end the Conservative psychodrama that has damaged our party for so long.
“We cannot expect our members and volunteers to go out and campaign when the parliamentary party is divided at Westminster.
“Fixing our party will take hard work and speed – I’m ready to take on this challenge and I will deliver from day one. We need to act now.”
Tom Tugendhat says the Conservatives lost the general election due to “a lack of vision and a failure of leadership”.
He vowed to restore British pride and restore the Conservative Party’s “fighting spirit” if elected leader.
“We are always on the right side of history and we should never apologize for who we are or for standing up for our values. Patriotism is not a dirty word – it is the best antidote to decline.”
Getty Imagesat the same time. Former Conservative leader Lord William Hague told the BBC it “would be better” if the party’s leadership was decided by MPs rather than members.
In 1997, Hague was elected leader of the Conservative Party by MPs only under the old system, but later adopted the current system.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Westminster Time: “That’s my fault, I introduced those rules.
“But now we can see that the world has changed and political parties have become smaller.
“It would be better if the decision was in the hands of MPs because party membership has become so small.”
However, he said MPs “still have a very important role to play” so “they have to be very careful about who they support so as not to give MPs the impression that they are happy with someone they are not really happy with”.
