PATory leadership contender James Cleverly says Rishi Sunak’s “stop the boats” slogan is a “mistake”.
The slogan was adopted in January 2023 in reference to the government’s efforts at the time to curb the number of people trying to reach the UK by crossing the Channel in small boats.
Cleverly, who later used the term several times as home secretary, told a fringe event at the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham that it “distilled a very, very complex and challenging issue into a short speech” .
He said it was “an unattainable goal” when even a ship crossing could be considered a “failure”.
Addressing party members on the conference’s main stage, leadership rival Tom Tugendhat warned the Conservatives against a shift to Reform Britain.
Asked if he was willing to strike a deal with Nigel Farage, he said: “My job is to reform the Conservative Party, not to be the reform party.”
Rival candidate Kemi Badenock said she was ready to work with Farage’s party in parliament but ruled out signing an electoral deal.
On Tuesday, Cleverley will have the opportunity to take questions from members on the main stage alongside fellow contender Robert Jenrick.
A further vote in Westminster on October 9 and 10 will see the Conservative MPs narrowed to just two.
Party members will then choose between the final two leaders, with the new leader to be announced on November 2.
The Conservatives suffered their worst result in July’s general election.
As a minister in the previous parliament, Cleverly was highly critical of the Conservative government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, saying it was the worst thing it had done.
“The lockdown was wrong and we made a very, very, very wrong mistake,” he said.
“The whole world was scared,” but “we became everything I thought we might never be,” he added.
Britain went from being a “freedom-loving nation” to “spying on our neighbours, laughing at our friends and canceling Christmas”, the clever thinkers said.
He added that “we have deified certain experts”, with epidemiologists “becoming gods among gods” while experts on domestic violence, children’s mental health and economics have been “downgraded” in importance.
“Let us never make the same mistake again,” he said.
He blamed part of the Conservative election defeat on the tone of its message to the country, which he likened to “nails on a blackboard”.
“We were harsh, acerbic and not friendly,” he added, arguing that this led to many former Conservative voters supporting the Lib Dems or staying home.
He also said his party needs to talk less and do more.
“Delivery will win us back from reform voters. A change in tone will win us back voters from the Lib Dems and stay-at-home voters.
Earlier, Cleverley told a separate fringe event that the party must change not just its tone but also its behavior to make it more attractive to young people and women.
He said years of infighting and “back-stabbing” had alienated many of these segments of the electorate.
“terrified”
He added that Conservatives need to be more optimistic, engaged and positive about the future, rather than focusing on the past, to win the right to be heard.
Women are over-represented in public services – on school gates, in doctors’ surgeries or in police forces, as victims of crime, the shadow home secretary observed.
As a result, he argued, the Conservatives need to temper their desire for a “smaller, more efficient state”, stop “scare-mongering” women who rely on these services and regain public trust that they will manage them well.
Cleverly also called on the party to recruit more female members and make better use of existing female members.
“We’re so stupid as a party, and I say that as a guy,” he said.
He spoke of the level of abuse women have to face in politics and said he realized that despite progress, girls’ lives were generally different and more difficult.
“Men wear the same clothes every day, but women don’t have that luxury. If I gain weight, no one will give me a monkey.”
“If a woman wears a different pair of glasses, some men will ask ‘What are they trying to achieve with these glasses?'”
