When will Britain have a new Prime Minister? It might be sooner than you think.
The new Prime Minister will, of course, be the person who wins the election for the new leader of the Conservative Party. We probably know the list of candidates and we now know the rules of the election.
There are no less than 11 declared candidates, all you might expect (and more) except Ben Wallace (who has ruled himself out) and Priti Patel (who, at the rime of writing, has not announced her intentions). I doubt that Patel will stand: she has left it too late and she will have been under pressure from around half the declared candidates to announce that she will not stand but support one of them (who will, of course, be expected to reward such timely affirmation).
Those 11 candidates will be reduced in number very quickly. To be on the ballot paper for the first round, a candidate needs 20 nominations. Not all of the 11 will meet that threshold.
Then, to go forward to the second round, at least 30 votes will be needed in the first round. Again not all will manage that.
The plan is to reduce the candidates to two by the time the House of Commons rises on 21 July. This will be achieved but it may be that the next stage – a ballot of Conservative Party members to be concluded by 5 September – will not be needed. Why do I say that? Because there are some strong arguments in favour of the weaker candidate pulling out in favour of the stronger candidate.
- This election is going to be rancorous. Already public and private briefings and accusations are being made about every candidate with slurs ranging from private tax arrangements to private sexual preferences. There would be real benefit to the reputation of the winner and of the Conservative Party if another six weeks of this could be avoided.
- If the members’ ballot were to go ahead, the Party would face a reputational risk. Are there really 200,000 members or is the true number much smaller? What will the turnout be when so many members are on their summer holidays? And what will the media reveal about how unrepresentative the membership is in terms of age, gender, ethnicity and geography?
- If the members’ ballot were to go ahead, there would be around a dozen hustings and all sorts of statements that could damage one or both candidates or limit their policy options in No 10. The media would have six weeks to find out all sorts of historic comments and actions that would embarrass or compromise the candidates.
- For the stronger candidate, the absence of a members’ ballot would mean becoming Prime Minister six weeks earlier. This would stop Boris Johnson doing too much further damage and enable the new PM to appoint a new team that would have a decent amount of quiet time (Parliament will not be sitting) to establish themselves before the Party conference.
- For the weaker candidate, pulling out before a members’ ballot would avoid a miserable summer traipsing round endless meetings where every one is a risk of messing up and give that individual the chance publicly to be serving the party by saving further damage to the party’s image and the chance privately to do a deal with the stronger candidate about an appropriate post in the Cabinet.
- There is a precedent for no members’ ballot. When Andrea Leadsom was due to face off with Theresa May, an unfortunate interview so damaged her chances that she pulled out before balloting commenced.
July 12th, 2022 at 2:27 pm
OK, my first couple of forecasts are coming true.
I said that Priti Patel would not stand and she has now announced that.
I said that not all 11 declared candidates would obtain at least 20 nominations. Grant Shapps clearly has not managed that and so he has withdrawn in favour of Rishi Sunak. Similarly Sajid Javid and Rehman Chishti withdrew from the contest minutes before the deadline for finding a minimum number of nominations. So now eight candidates remain in the race.