Priti Patel, 5 others make pitch to succeed Rishi Sunak as UK Opposition leader

London: British Indian former home secretary Priti Patel is among six candidates making their leadership pitches to succeed Rishi Sunak as Conservative Party chief and Opposition Leader as the UK Parliament resumed after its summer recess on Monday.

Patel, 52, is battling it out with fellow Tory Cabinet ex-ministers – Kemi Badenoch, James Cleverly, Tom Tugendhat, Robert Kenrick and Mel Stride – for the first round of votes scheduled for Wednesday, when one candidate with the least backing of their party MPs will be knocked out of the race.

The staged contest was triggered after the Conservatives’ bruising defeat to Prime Minister Keir Starmer led Labour in the July 4 general election, with Sunak resigning to act as Opposition leader until his successor is elected.

“It’s time to move on and to move forward. I am an optimist with clear goals, and I will revive our party so we can provide the leadership our great country needs,” said Patel, in a key speech around her campaign slogan of “unite to win” ahead of the first voting round.

“When I was the home secretary, we increased police officers to record numbers and gave them more powers to fight crime. We gave victims of crime more rights and improved services and support for survivors of domestic abuse. We ended free movement and brought in reforms to our immigration and asylum system... We did all that and more, you have in me a leader who will fight for the British people,” she said, highlighting her record in Cabinet under former prime minister Boris Johnson.

In an interview with ‘The Sunday Times’, the Gujarati heritage member of Parliament for Witham in Essex opened up about racist jibes while at school in England after her family migrated from Uganda, fleeing persecution under dictator Idi Amin in the 1960s.

“As a child, once people start to label you, it lives with you for all your life... I’m working even harder to show that I’m equally capable,” Patel told the newspaper.

“My mum would pack us loads of food, a nice picnic. She’s a vegetarian, so she made Indian rice and chapatis. That was just amazing,” she shared, with reference to family holidays by the English coast.

Patel faces a tough battle as Tory MPs vote to start narrowing down the field this week until only two candidates remain for the online voting by the wider Conservative membership, the result of which will be declared on November 2.

In her speech, Badenoch – currently serving as shadow communities secretary in the House of Commons – called for “renewal” of the Tories and shadow home secretary Cleverly made an appeal for unity. The common theme running through all six contenders’ pitches is an attack on Labour’s tax-raising policies and attacks on the Tory record after 14 years in government.

"I'm not going to take lectures from anyone from the previous government who left the worst possible inheritance. The country's in a real state," said Starmer, hitting back at the Opposition Leader hopefuls.

He declared that the Tories had "badly damaged" the economy and should apologise "for the mess they made".

"What we're doing is cleaning it up," he claimed.

Meanwhile, Parliament prepared for its regular schedule with a statement on last month’s riots and votes on bills to bring rail operators into public ownership and support the creation of a new publicly owned energy company among the key issues on the agenda.