Tory leadership outsider Mel Stride vows to rebuild party

With a recent poll by Conservative Home putting Mel Stride as the members’ last choice at 2%, the shadow work and pensions secretary is determined to become the next leader of his party.

The 62-year-old is widely seen as an outsider in the contest but he was quick to pick up the ten signatures from the parliamentary party to make it onto the ballot. Being one of the most outspoken internal critics of Liz Truss and her 2022 mini budget, Stride was Rishi Sunak’s successful campaign manager after she resigned. Unlike other candidates, this is his first attempt at leadership.

Under Sunak’s government, Stride served as work and pensions secretary and was the most frequently televised cabinet minister during the general election, appearing on Good Morning Britain seven times alone. Because of this, he accepts the public has only seen his professional demeanour, but says his friends would call him loyal, determined, and funny.

Before entering the Commons at 48, Stride was an entrepreneur building businesses in the US and UK. He thinks this experience distinguishes him from the other candidates vying for the Tory top job.

“That is important experience because I think the Conservative Party now needs to be fundamentally rebuilt,” he said. “It needs to be restructured in terms of its policy platform so that it will appeal to those who have gone over to Reform, while also not forgetting those we have lost to Labour and the Liberal Democrats.”

Stride refused to say whether there were ideological differences between him and the other candidates, instead claiming that he can “reach out to all wings of the party” and that there is far more that unites the Tories “than separates us.” Stride went on to express concern that the party had lost sight of some of its core values. “One thing that is uniting us is the fact that we have kind of lost sight of some of the values that used to burn very bright in the past,” he said, specifically mentioning opportunity and aspiration.

He added there aren’t “many discordant voices” around lowering migration, cutting taxes, and having a strong defence. However, Stride is equally focusing on external issues in preparation for the May local election, saying the economy is the most pressing issue facing the UK. “The biggest issue facing the UK, at the moment, is the cost of living […] there is no doubt people are feeling financial pain.”

Stride, however, “doesn’t accept” that the economy “isn’t great,” noting the country’s “near record high employment” and emphasising that “we mustn’t forget we did some things really, really well.”

Stride would consider relaxing planning permissions so the UK can build more houses, saying his party “has time”. He wants the issue of housing to tie in with young people, revealing he supports, if the economy allows, a tax scheme allowing young people to allocate a portion of their national insurance contributions from their first jobs into a fund they can later use to get on the housing ladder.

“Those things are only possible if you have the fiscal room to do it. And that’s where things like the welfare reforms I was bringing in when I was secretary of state for work and pensions are so important because you can actually save billions of pounds,” he said. 

He believes the “biggest challenge” now facing the Conservative Party is reconnecting with young people, adding: “Expect to hear a lot from all candidates.” The Tory leadership contender also suggested he would consider aligning the migration rate with the number of houses being built, saying that it would be open to a “healthy debate.”

The other candidates in the race are James Cleverly, Tom Tugendhat, Priti Patel, Robert Jenrick, and Kemi Badenoch. Politics UK has reached out to all of them for an interview.