Who is James Cleverly, and can he become the next Tory leader?

Read time: 5 minutes

What you need to know about the Conservative leadership race

• The current contenders to become the next Tory leader are Kemi Badenoch, Mel Stride, Robert Jenrick, Tom Tugendhat and James Cleverly. Priti Patel was eliminated in the first round of voting.
• This list will be whittled down to just two candidates in a series of votes by MPs, before Conservative Party members vote for the next leader.
• The winner of the leadership contest is set to be named on 2 November, ahead of the party conference.

What's James Cleverly's story?

It it hadn't been for a leg injury, James Cleverly may never have become a politician.

He planned a military career until an incident in 1989 brought it to an end, eventually satisfying his army ambitions with long-running service in the UK's Army Reserve.

But considering politics was never his first choice, he's made a decent go of it.

Cleverly has served as the Secretary of State for Education under Boris Johnson, Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs under Liz Truss, and Secretary of State for the Home Department in Rishi Sunak's government, and is currently the Shadow Home Secretary.

Cleverly says he has “always” voted Conservative, and first spoke at a party conference in 2002, where he discussed how the party could attract votes from the UK’s Black communities.

Elected to the London Assembly in 2008, he became its Tory leader between 2011-12. He entered the House of Commons in 2015 as the representative for Braintree.

But his time in the public eye hasn't been without controversy.

There was backlash to comments he made about British football fans travelling to Saudi Arabia for the 2022 World Cup, where homosexuality is punishable by up to seven years in prison. At the time he said it was important to "respect the culture" of the nation.

He faced widespread criticism for comments made in December 2023 about spiking his wife's drink with a date-rape drug, claiming it had been a joke.

In his private life, he is a passionate Warhammer gamer, and reportedly has a private YouTube channel dedicated to him painting the game's tiny figures.

What do his politics look like?

Cleverly is considered more moderate, or centrist, than leadership rivals such as Robert Jenrick and Kemi Badenoch. However, he was a firm believer in Brexit, and backed the Conservatives plan to deport refugees entering the UK to Rwanda.

He has even promised to bring the £700 million scheme back if he becomes Prime Minister in 2030.

The Foreign Secretary role was where Cleverly felt most at home, and when it was suggested he might be moved into the Defence Secretary role, he asked to be kept in his then-current job.

What has James Cleverly said about leading the Tories?

Cleverly is focusing his campaign for leader on migration, claiming the UK needs "a deterrent" to stop people from overseas attempting to enter the UK to start a new life.

Launching his campaign, he said that Keir Starmer's Labour government had "badly damaged" the UK's relationships with other countries in little more than two months in power.

Cleverly is promising he will make the Tories "think and act like Conservatives again", and says it needs a "credible plan" to achieve its goals, particularly when it comes to bringing down immigration numbers.

He also said he wanted to take the UK "back to that Thatcherite era" to reward entrepreneurs, and wealth creators.

The Tory disaster in the July election was, he says, largely due to people staying home and not voting.

What's The News Agents' take?

Lewis Goodall says Cleverly performed better than expected in the first round of voting, where he placed third – just one vote behind Kemi Badenoch, who had been seen as the frontrunner before the selection process began.

“He's basically standing on unity, being a kind-of good guy, not disliked by anyone in the parliamentary party,” Lewis says.

“But if he can come second, if he can knock Badenoch – who did worse than expected – out in the next round, then actually he's he's got real momentum to be in the final two.”

The News Agents were recently joined by Ben Riley-Smith, politics editor at The Telegraph, who believes Cleverly has the most “government clout” of the leadership hopefuls.

“He's had two of the four great offices of the state – Home Secretary, and Foreign Secretary,” says Riley-Smith.

“He speaks pretty fluidly. I know in the election campaign, the Tory HQ loved getting him on the airwaves because he was very fluid, and he spoke in quite a understandable way to voters.”

But it’s his ties to the front bench of the previous tory government which could prove his undoing when it comes to leading a party keen to move on from past mistakes.

“I think the challenge again is going to be whether people want to turn the page on the last government or not,” Riley-Smith adds.

“There's a benefit to having all that experience, but there's also a downside – it's very hard to run away from the policies, because he was right there at the top.”

He adds that Cleverly’s promises in his Tory leadership campaign echo those of the party’s failed election manifesto – a big tax cut, action on Stamp Duty, and bringing the Rwanda plan back, among others.

“His challenge is saying, ‘look, I'm the guy for the 2030s even though I was such a central figure in the early 20 teens.’

Listen in full on The News Agents.