A week ago they suffered the worst defeat in more than 100 years. But rather than licking their wounds, MPs in the Conservative party have already begun positioning themselves as leadership hopefuls. Suella Braverman has made waves with her speech at a Washington meeting of global conservatives, while Kemi Badenoch shocked some by criticising Rishi Sunak in the first shadow cabinet meeting.
The Guardian’s senior political reporter, Peter Walker, has been at the Popular Conservatism conference, where delegates from the right of the Conservative party have been planning how to keep their views on the party’s agenda. He explains how a bitter battle for control of the party by the right and centre factions has begun.
Kiran Stacey, the Guardian’s political correspondent, tells Helen Pidd who the centrist leadership favourites are and what their hopes are of steering their party towards the middle ground – and whether it is the Lib Dems, rather than Reform, who should most worry the party.
Photograph: Maja Smiejkowska/PA
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