One of the frontrunners to be the next leader of the Conservative Party has been slammed by rivals for being "like a submarine", after keeping a low-profile during the far right riots that have rocked towns and cities in the wake of the horrific Southport stabbings.

Kemi Badenoch, MP for North West Essex, is considered one of the favourites to succeed Rishi Sunak as the next Leader of the Opposition, but has swam under the radar for the past week, while police cars have been set on fire and far right thugs have terrified local communities.

Other contenders like Mel Stride, James Cleverly, Priti Patel, and Robert Jenrick, have all been vocal in calling out these violent gangs, with former Home Secretary Cleverly firmly stating: "We cannot let rioting thugs and extremists win. Their violence and attacks on the police can never be justified."

But one Conservative MP told the Guardian that Badenoch had been "like a submarine" during the riots. Her colleague said this was because she kept “coming up to cause chaos – which works in cabinet, but doesn’t work in a leader.”

The leadership hopeful has made several posts on social media in the past week, with scant mention of the horrific scenes of far right thugs chucking bricks at police officers and causing mayhem. In that time she has tweeted about Aberdeen's oil and gas future, and the Gender Recognition Act.

Her main intervention on the far right riots was in a Telegraph interview last Friday, where the Tory frontrunner argued integration was the problem, causing "tension" for far right thugs.

Badenoch said: “You look at all the tension that we’ve been seeing in the country over the last few days in Southport and Hartlepool, everybody’s quiet. They don’t want to upset the cultural establishment that wants to pretend that nothing is going on.

“They should be saying that we need a clearer strategy on integration, which we don’t have at the moment. Instead, we just pretend that everything is fine and it’s a few bad apples, which is sometimes the case. But if you want to have a successful multiracial country, you need to make an effort to do that. You can’t just pretend that there are no tensions.

"And we’ve been seeing this not just between ethnic minorities and white British people, but it’s even between ethnic minorities. This is not normal.”

Both Priti Patel and James Cleverly were unequivocal in comndemning the actions of the far right rioters as "racism" and those participating as "thugs", a harsher tone than that taken by Badenoch in her interview with the Telegraph.

Recent polling has shown Badenoch's lead in the race to lead the party slipping, with Robert Jenrick now in pole position. The latest Popular Conservatives poll put Jenrick on 24.2 per cent, Badenoch on 23.4 per cent, and Patel on 21 per cent

Trailing behind is Cleverly on 5 per cent, Tom Tugendhat at 3 per cent, and Stride on 2 per cent- 20 per cent were undecided.