Kemi Badenoch accuses Tory rivals of seeking ‘easy answers’ on immigration

Two frontrunners to be Conservative party leader have criticised their rivals’ promises to leave the European court of human rights (ECHR) as the contest turns combative with days to go until the first MP is eliminated.

Kemi Badenoch, the former business secretary, and James Cleverly, the former home secretary, both rejected the idea of leaving the ECHR on Monday despite calls from some of their colleagues to do so.

The former cabinet colleagues were launching their campaigns less than a mile from each other in central London on the busiest day yet of the Tory leadership campaign, which will be narrowed down to five candidates on Wednesday.

Speaking at a glitzy launch event in central London, Badenoch described migration targets and pledges to leave the ECHR – both of which have been pushed by her rivals Robert Jenrick and Tom Tugendhat – as “easy answers”. Many on the right of the party blame the ECHR for scuppering their plans to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda.

“We had a cap of tens of thousands when David Cameron came in,” she said. “We need to ask ourselves why didn’t that work, rather than just saying we’ll make another promise.”

She added: “It’s not just about throwing out numbers and throwing out targets. Something is wrong with the system. People who are throwing out numbers and saying they will leave the ECHR and so on are giving you easy answers.”

Less than an hour later, Cleverly backed her stance, albeit in less combative language. “The ECHR is not the body that stopped the planes taking off just before I became home secretary. It was the UK supreme court which stopped those planes taking off.”

He added: “The simple fact is, if you’re trying to grab shorthand answers, quick fixes, the British people will look at us and say we’ve heard that before.”

Related: ‘The race is wide open’: MPs’ vote looms for six Tory leadership hopefuls

Badenoch and Cleverly were speaking a day before all six leadership candidates address Conservative MPs in Westminster at a hustings on Tuesday. Some campaign officials believe this will be the most important event in the early phases of the election.

MPs will whittle down the field to two candidates in stages – beginning with the first elimination on Wednesday – before party members will be allowed to vote for their choice.

Despite her comments on migration and European human rights law, Badenoch made her pitch mostly to the right of the party, saying the previous Tory government had “talked right but governed left”.

Asked for an example of how the last government had governed like Labour, Badenoch cited the imposition of targets to reach net zero. “We all want to deliver a better environment, but creating legislation and a target without working out how we were going to do it, in my view, was trusting regulation rather than innovation,” she said.

Leaning into her reputation as a politician whose plainspokenness can, according to some colleagues, come across as abrasive, Badenoch talked about her training as an engineer, saying these were people who “see the world as it truly is”.

She said: “I refuse do to spin. I do charm sometimes, but I think life is better when people say what they think. For too long, politics has just been about working out what the voters want to hear and then saying it back to them. It is the triumph of words over deeds, and that has to change.”

Badenoch’s speech also referenced her regular forays into “culture war” issues, notably over gender and race, saying she was “far, far more worried” about the election of four independent MPs who campaigned heavily on issues connected to Gaza than the arrival of five Reform UK members .

Cleverly, meanwhile, appeared to take aim at Badenoch’s reputation for picking fights on X/Twitter, saying: “It’s really easy to use the most aggressive language when we’re in politics. If you’re chasing clicks and likes on social media, that’s the way forward.”

His was a more policy-heavy speech, promising to lift defence spending to 3% of economic output and to eliminate stamp duty altogether. And, in another pointed comment – this time directed at some of his predecessors in the Home Office, who include his leadership rival Priti Patel – he added: “My record has been delivery, delivery, delivery, delivery.

“When I was at the Home Office, I perhaps broke with tradition and spent less time shouting about what frustrated me and more time dealing with the things that frustrated the British people.”