Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has told the BBC she leads “a brand new party full of new people,” after it emerged in the Spectator that former cabinet minister and Tory party chairman Sir Grant Shapps has been rejected as a Conservative parliamentary candidate.
Sir Grant, who has declined to comment, held nine ministerial roles in government and co-chaired the party. In cabinet, he served as home secretary, defence secretary, transport secretary, business secretary, energy secretary, and net zero secretary, and he had earlier been a Foreign Office minister, housing minister, and international development minister. He lost his Welwyn Hatfield seat to Labour’s Andrew Lewin in 2024 by 3,799 votes, having represented it since 2005. His application to stand again at the next general election has now been declined.
One party source told the BBC the decision reflected badly on Badenoch’s temperament, arguing that “North Korean purges don’t work in British politics.”
Badenoch, speaking at a news conference in central London, declined to discuss the case directly. “We don’t treat our former MPs or our candidates like tittle-tattle for Westminster gossip,” she said, adding that candidates would be announced shortly and would show “a very different party from the one that was removed from government in 2024.”
Pressed repeatedly on the decision, she said commenting on individual applications would be wrong, but insisted the party had changed. “It is not going to be making the mistakes of the past. We lost 250 MPs at the last election,” she said. “We are changing policies, we are changing people, we are changing process.” Candidates, she said, would have to meet the standards she was setting and abide by the policies on which she has drawn “red lines,” noting there could be many reasons for any individual to be allowed onto the list or not.
Badenoch has insisted that future Conservative candidates agree to abandon net zero carbon policies and to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights. Sir Grant is not thought to disagree with either position. He is also co-chair of Conservatives Together, a group founded to support and represent Conservative candidates, and received a knighthood in Rishi Sunak’s resignation honours list for “political and public service.”
