Robert Jenrick speaks at a Conservative Party leadership campaign event at the QEII Centre in Westminster, London, Sunday Sept. 1, 2024. (Aaron Chown/PA via AP)

LONDON (AP) — Members of Britain’s defeated and divided Conservative Party gathered Sunday for an annual conference dominated by the search for a new leader capable of bringing the right-of-center party back from a catastrophic election defeat.

U.K. voters ousted the Tories in a July election, leaving the party that had governed since 2010 with just 121 seats in the 650-seat House of Commons. The center-left Labour Party won more than 400 seats and returned to office under Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

The day after the election, defeated ex- Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he would quit, remaining caretaker leader until his replacement is chosen.

The four candidates still in the race to replace him – whittled down by lawmakers from an initial six – will spend the four-day conference in Birmingham, central England speaking to as many party members as possible.

Former Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick, ex-Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch, former Foreign Secretary James Cleverly and ex-Security Minister Tom Tugendhat make their final pitches from the conference stage on Wednesday, before Conservative lawmakers will eliminate two candidates in a vote the following week.

Party members across the country will then vote to pick a winner, who will be announced Nov. 2.

The victor will take over a party depleted by years of turmoil under ex-Prime Minister Boris Johnson – ousted by colleagues in 2022 amid ethics scandals – and his successor Liz Truss. She resigned after just 49 days in office when her tax-cutting plans rocked the financial markets and battered the value of the pound.

In the July election, the Conservatives lost votes to hard-right Reform U.K., led by populist politician Nigel Farage, which won five seats in Parliament and came second in dozens more. Other voters deserted the Tories for the centrist Liberal Democrats, who won 72 seats.

The current front-runners in the party race are Jenrick and Badenoch, both of whom are appealing to the party’s right wing. Jenrick argues that the U.K. should drastically curb immigration and leave the European Convention on Human Rights in order to take tough measures to stop people seeking asylum in the U.K.

He told Sky News on Sunday that the party lost because “we didn’t deliver the strong economy, the strong (health service) and the strong border that we promised.”

Nigeria-raised Badenoch evokes Tory icon Margaret Thatcher with her calls for a smaller state, appeals to patriotism and criticism of multiculturalism. She said Sunday that too many immigrants don’t love Britain and “hate Israel.”

Cleverly and Tugendhat come from a more centrist grouping in the party but have also talked tough on immigration as the party tries to win voters back from Reform.

Some Conservatives argue that the party is doomed to lose the next election if it veers too far to the right. Former Prime Minister Theresa May said the party “lost because we spent too long tacking to the right in order to appease potential Reform voters.”

“Elections in the U.K. are won on the center ground, and we abandon that ground at our peril,” May wrote in The Times of London.

The Conservatives Party’s time-consuming leadership contest has weakened its ability to capitalize on the new government’s missteps. Starmer’s personal approval rating has plunged amid his gloomy pronouncements about the economy and a row about his acceptance of freebies from a wealthy Labour donor.

On Saturday a Labour lawmaker, Rosie Duffield, quit the party with a blast at Starmer, accusing him of “sleaze and nepotism” and saying the party leaders seemed “more about greed and power than making a difference.”

Relations between Duffield and the Labour leadership have long been strained, particularly over transgender issues. Duffield is a prominent opponent of making it easier for people to legally change their gender.

Cabinet minister Pat McFadden said he was disappointed to see her leave, “but ultimately I’m not surprised.”

News from © The Associated Press, 2024