Badenoch vows ‘mission of renewal' as Cleverly returns in Tory reshuffle
Sir James served in the Foreign Office and as home secretary when the Conservatives were in power before spending months on the back benches after coming third in the Tory leadership contest last year.
The MP for Braintree in Essex has since used his influential position as a former minister to warn against pursuing a populist agenda akin to Nigel Farage's Reform UK.
He has also urged the Conservatives to reject climate change 'luddites' on the right who believe 'the way things are now is just fine,' in a speech widely seen as at odds with the net zero stance of the Tory leader.
His frontbench comeback is among a series of appointments made by Mrs Badenoch on Tuesday, also including Kevin Hollinrake as party chairman, replacing Nigel Huddleston, who will become shadow culture secretary.
Stuart Andrew will become shadow health secretary, replacing Edward Argar, who resigned citing health reasons.
Julia Lopez has been appointed shadow science secretary, taking over from Alan Mak, who has left the shadow cabinet.
Gareth Bacon has been replaced by Mr Holden in his transport brief and demoted from the shadow cabinet, but remains minister for London.
As he prepares for his last parliamentary oral questions from the front bench, I want to put on record my sincere thanks to Ed Argar for serving in my Shadow Cabinet.
I wish him the very best for a speedy recovery and return to full health, and so I will be making a few changes… pic.twitter.com/FWoC7L19nd
— Kemi Badenoch (@KemiBadenoch) July 22, 2025
Mrs Badenoch said: 'The Conservative Party's mission of renewal continues, and these changes demonstrate exactly that.
'This new frontbench team reflects the rich experience within the party – from the tenacious campaigners fighting for Britain, to the experienced MPs who will keep holding this disastrous Labour Government to account.
'Unlike Labour and Reform, the Conservative Party is unashamedly on the side of Britain's makers: the people that work hard, do the right thing and want to get on in life.'
The reshuffle confirms former leadership contender Robert Jenrick will remain in the shadow cabinet following questions about whether Mrs Badenoch would choose to keep him in his current post.
The former leadership contender has strayed well beyond his justice brief, building a prominent social media presence with campaigns on a range of issues from tackling fare dodgers on the London Underground to the impact of immigration on housing.
Labour Party chairwoman Ellie Reeves said: 'No amount of deckchair shuffling can hide that the architects of 14 years of Tory failure still sit around Kemi Badenoch's top table.
'The Conservatives haven't changed and they haven't once apologised for the mess they left behind.'
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The Independent
16 minutes ago
- The Independent
Your move, Jenrick… passed over for promotion, what will Kemi's biggest rival do next?
Robert Jenrick insists that he is happy where he is. I am told that he 'genuinely' did not want to be shadow chancellor, and that he is 'concentrating on the job at hand' as shadow justice secretary. 'That's what Kemi [Badenoch] has asked him to do for her, and that's what he has to focus on,' says an ally. Jenrick focuses on it effectively, finding the holy grail of 'cut-through' for his recent video in which he accosted fare-dodgers and asked them if they would go back and pay. That is just about in his justice department brief – but he is also known for ranging more widely in his social media communications. Pride of place in his X (I still call it Twitter) account is a two-minute video setting out his assessment of Keir Starmer's first year, a 'year of lies and decline'. It is the sort of thing a leader of the opposition might produce – if they were unwise enough to use the word 'lies'. Jenrick's ambition is taken for granted across Westminster. At his summer reception for journalists at No 10 last night, the prime minister joked about Jenrick's imminent replacement of Kemi Badenoch. Most senior Conservatives who are no longer MPs say the same three things privately. One, that they do not expect Badenoch to survive as leader through this parliament. Two, that they expect Jenrick to succeed her. And three, that they think he will do a deal with Nigel Farage to 'unite the right' before the election. Jenrick's allies try to squash such talk – or, at least, they try to make it clear that their man is not encouraging it. One tells me: 'Rob is concentrating on the job at hand as shadow justice, trying to highlight issues that need fixing and then putting pressure on the government to fix them.' When I point out that leadership speculation is rife, this ally says: 'Others can talk about whatever they like, but Kemi's job is incredibly tough and she's doing a good job. It's not for Rob to get into any leadership chatter.' But the chatter is happening anyway. Will Lloyd has an article in the New Statesman repeating a lot of it, and predicting that Badenoch will be challenged when the rules allow it after she has been leader for a year in November. This may be right, even if a lot of the criticism of Badenoch is unfair. I do not believe that either Jenrick or James Cleverly would have done any better over the past year: the Conservative Party's problems go much deeper than something that can be fixed by a swashbuckling performance at Prime Minister's Questions or a viral video. The problem is the Tory government's record, particularly on immigration, and no one who was a minister in that government is going to escape that record until they have served several years in quarantine. But politics isn't fair, and so the Tories might change leader, despite Badenoch trying to shore up her position by bringing Cleverly into the shadow cabinet. It might happen because it is one of the few things that a Tory MP can actually do that might make a difference, even if they know that it probably won't. This is despite the doubling of the threshold for triggering a leadership election. After Badenoch was elected, Bob Blackman, the chair of the Tory backbench 1922 Committee, announced that a vote of no confidence in the leader would require private letters from one-third of Tory MPs, namely 40 out of 120, as opposed to the 15 per cent, or 18 MPs, previously needed. As Jenrick had 41 votes in the final MPs' ballot last year, though, this higher number is clearly attainable – even if it probably wouldn't happen straight away in November. Tory MPs would be right to hesitate long and hard before they take such a step. The party has got into the habit of changing leaders, which makes it look like a desperate and directionless rabble. And if it is not obvious that Jenrick would have done better over the past year, why would he do significantly better in future? As for doing a deal with Farage, what is in it for Reform UK? It is not too strong to say that Reform activists hate the Tory party, and there is an equal and opposite repulsion, in that many Tory voters would rather vote Lib Dem than have anything to do with Farage. Nor were relations between Jenrick and Reform smoothed by last week's clash between Jenrick and Zia Yusuf, the head of Reform's 'Doge' unit. Yusuf claimed that 'one of the team who post to my X account accidentally pressed 'like' on an awful antisemitic tweet' about Jenrick, whose wife is Jewish. Jenrick refused to accept Yusuf's apology, calling it 'bulls***'. This spat complicates the other big option for Jenrick, which would be to defect to Reform. This simply 'isn't a consideration', according to Jenrick's ally, and it does seem unlikely. It would depend on Jenrick not becoming Tory leader but deciding, nearer to the next election, that Reform was likely to overtake the Tories in the number of seats in the Commons. Then, if Jenrick is as ambitious as many of his colleagues assume he is, he might think that his best chance of a senior ministerial job would be in a Reform-led government. As I say, unlikely. But a lot of unlikely things have happened in politics.
BreakingNews.ie
17 minutes ago
- BreakingNews.ie
Kemi Badenoch plays down prospect of leadership coup after Tory reshuffle
Kemi Badenoch has played down the prospect of a coup after unveiling her revamped Conservative top team. The Tory leader said she was not 'paying any attention' to reports that backbenchers are already plotting to oust her, less than a year after she was elected. Advertisement The New Statesman reported that many Tory MPs who backed Mrs Badenoch in the leadership contest have privately turned on her, and believe her core team of advisers are 'lightweights and sycophants'. Faltering Conservatives may seek to trigger a vote of confidence in their leader in November, once a grace period protecting her from such a move ends, the magazine said. The claims came to light a day after Mrs Badenoch reshuffled the senior Tory ranks, appointing former minister Sir James Cleverly as her shadow housing secretary. Asked about suggestions that Tory MPs were already plotting a coup, Mrs Badenoch told the PA news agency: 'I would say that if nobody put their name to it, then I'm not paying any attention to it. Advertisement 'People have been saying that about every single leader, and it's usually the same one or two people who say it about every single leader.' Speaking during a visit to a housing development in north-west London alongside Mr Cleverly, Mrs Badenoch added: 'I've been elected to get the Conservative Party back on track, and I'm very focused on doing that. 'We lost to a historic defeat last year for many reasons, not least of all, house building, not doing as well as it could have done.' Sir James Cleverly and Kemi Badenoch during a visit to a housing development in north-west London (Lucy North/PA) The New Statesman said Mrs Badenoch had criticised her predecessor Rishi Sunak for making an early exit from D-Day commemorations in France during the 2024 UK general election campaign, and that she believed the gaffe was central to the party's loss. Advertisement The magazine also claimed to have seen a notebook containing her handwriting, which included affirming phrases like 'You are a serious person who does big things', and suggesting the Tory leader was 'the standard bearer of the right'. Mrs Badenoch's team denied that she had lost any such notebook. In his first full day in the job, shadow housing secretary Mr Cleverly accused the UK prime minister of being more interested in finding accommodation for asylum seekers than 'hard-working young people'. He said he was 'furious' when the prime minister 'blithely' said there are 'plenty of houses' around the UK for asylum seekers. Advertisement Sir Keir Starmer insisted there was 'lots of housing available' to accommodate rising numbers of homeless people and asylum seekers when he was questioned by senior MPs earlier this week. Mr Cleverly told Times Radio: 'I was furious, I genuinely couldn't believe he said this, when the Prime Minister was at the Liaison Committee and blithely said, 'Oh, there are plenty of houses around the UK for asylum seekers'.' Mr Cleverly also said he understands the frustrations of local people when asked about demonstrations outside hotels believed to be housing asylum seekers. There has been a series of protests outside the Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex, since an asylum seeker was charged with sexual assault. Advertisement Police officers escort a woman away from a demonstration outside the Bell Hotel in Epping (Yui Mok/PA) His new role makes him the opposition counterpart to Angela Rayner in her housing, communities and local government brief, but not in her deputy prime minister post. Ms Rayner said on Tuesday that immigration was among issues having a 'profound impact on society' as she updated the Cabinet on her work on social cohesion. Mr Cleverly was also asked for his view on the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) after Mrs Badenoch launched a review and said she was 'increasingly of the view' that the UK should withdraw. He would not say whether he agreed as he toured broadcast studios on Wednesday morning. Mrs Badenoch told broadcasters: 'James and I have always had the same position on the ECHR, and that is that if we need to leave, then we should leave, but it's not a silver bullet. 'That is why we have a commission on this very issue, which will be reporting at party conference. 'So I wouldn't bring someone into the shadow cabinet if they didn't agree with me.'
Telegraph
17 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Corbyn's hard-Left party aiming for quarter of vote
The formation of the new party raises the prospect of the Left splitting in a similar way to how Reform UK has peeled away support from the Conservatives on the Right. Mr Corbyn told activists: 'I'm hoping we can get through this process very, very quickly so we can do an establishment and a launch very, very quickly. 'So well in advance of next year's local elections we will have in place an organisation that supports local campaigns, supports independents in their campaigns and comes together under if you like a common badge, common emblem, common symbol, common umbrella.' Labour suffered heavy losses to Reform at the local elections this May and party figures fear next year's polls will be worse still. The party will be defending 14 out of 16 of the borough councils that will be re-elected in the autumn. It is also in charge of 21 out of 32 boroughs up for election in London. Further losses to Reform are also expected at the Welsh elections on the same day, while the SNP hopes to capitalise in the Scottish elections on Labour's poor national polling.
