Badenoch rejects Shapps as UK Conservatives shift right
Kemi Badenoch has blocked former minister Grant Shapps from standing as a candidate, signalling a hard-right shift in the UK opposition that demands politicians abandon net zero targets and the European Convention on Human Rights.
Kemi Badenoch has rejected Grant Shapps’s application to stand as a Conservative parliamentary candidate at the next general election. Shapps, a former party chairman who held nine ministerial roles including defence, home and business secretary, lost his Welwyn Hatfield seat to Labour’s Andrew Lewin in 2024 by 3,799 votes.
The rejection of such a senior figure underscores the extent of Badenoch’s effort to reshape the party following its landslide defeat. Conservatives lost 250 MPs in the last election, and Badenoch is now enforcing a strict new orthodoxy to rebuild.
For European policymakers and businesses, the defining feature of this overhaul is the imposition of strict policy red lines. Badenoch has insisted that all future Conservative candidates must agree to abandon net zero carbon policies and to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights. While it is not thought Shapps disagrees with these positions, his exclusion suggests a purge based on past associations rather than current policy alignment.
Speaking at a news conference in central London, Badenoch refused to discuss specific cases. "Commenting on individual applications would be absolutely wrong," she said. Instead, she framed the shift as a necessary break from the past. "We are changing policies, we are changing people, we are changing process," she added. "What I have said is we want people who are going to meet the standards which we are setting. Who are going to abide by the policies I have put red lines on."
The move has sparked internal backlash, with one party source telling the BBC that "it reflects badly on Kemi's temperament. North Korean purges don't work in British politics". Shapps, who received a knighthood in Rishi Sunak's resignation honours list and co-chairs the candidate support group Conservatives Together, has declined to comment.
Badenoch is positioning the recalibration as a necessary reset to win back public trust. "You will see that this is a very different party from the one that was removed from government in 2024," she said. "We don't treat our former MPs or our candidates like tittle-tattle for Westminster gossip." She added: "I want people to know that this is a new Conservative party. It is not going to be making the mistakes of the past."
