Office and Power. The ‘government’ question is almost settled. How about the ‘leadership’ one?

The agreement finally signed between the Conservative Party and the Democratic Unionist Party on Monday has all but settled the question of who would form the next government. Ministers will win the key vote on the Queen’s Speech and will feel secure that their confidence and supply alliance with the DUP will see them through at least the next two years and probably much longer. Bar a real rash of by-election defeats (and Conservative MPs are a lot younger than they were a generation ago) there is very little chance of the Government being defeated on those parts of its programme that it absolutely must see enacted. Jeremy Corbyn will surely huff and puff a lot but he will not be able to blow this administration down. The road from here to the UK’s exit from the EU is now clear.
What is rather less clear is who will be the resident of 10 Downing Street come 30 March 30 2019. This will be a matter of intense speculation between now and the end of the year. As BVCA Insight has asserted before, if Theresa May can make it to New Year’s Day 2018 then she has a strong chance of being there for an additional 15 or more months at least.
In assessing how she might fare over the next six months, therefore, a number of factors have to be taken into account. These are the rules – both formal and informal – of forcing a sitting Prime Minister who does not want to leave out, the process by which any successor would be selected or elected and the likely contenders.
Exit strategy
There are essentially two means by which the Prime Minister could be involuntarily deposed. The formal is a ‘bottom up’ process in which Conservative MPs are the crucial actors. A motion of no confidence can be triggered at any time if 15% of those Members of Parliament ask in writing for such a ballot to take place. A simple majority is absolute. A fresh election would be held in which the ousted former leader is ineligible to participate. It is by these means that Iain Duncan Smith was removed as Leader of the Opposition in 2003.
In practice, winning by a very narrow margin might not be considered a sufficient mandate and a sitting leader might feel obliged to depart their post. In such a situation, however, they could stand in the election that would follow but a situation in which an incumbent were imposed again on an unhappy parliamentary party would not seem a viable one (having said that this is precisely what the parliamentary Labour Party has endured ever since 2015).
There is, though, a more informal route available as well. If the overwhelming majority of the Cabinet informed the Prime Minister of the day that they should stand down and made it clear that mass resignations would follow if not, then it would be a brave or foolish Premier who tried to cling on even if they had a secure majority in the House of Commons.
This nearly happened to Gordon Brown in June 2009 but he survived thanks to some skilful work by Lord Mandelson. Mr Brown did, nonetheless, have to abandon plans to replace his Chancellor, agree to extend his circle of aides, pledge to alter his personal political style to become more collegial in his approach and back away from legislative initiatives that were either internally divisive or risked alienating voters (any of this sound familiar?). That was enough for him to stay as Prime Minister until the May 2010 election. He was assisted in this by a lack of consensus inside the Cabinet as to whom they would prefer instead.
The crucial moment for Mrs May is likely to prove the weeks immediately following the Conservative Party conference in Manchester in October. It is after that when both the Cabinet elite and the rank-and-file in terms of MPs will look at the state of party opinion, her public opinion poll ratings and the condition of the Brexit negotiations and reach a conclusion as to whether a ‘bottom-up’ or ‘top-down’ move should be made. Right now, most Conservative MPs are expecting that it is more probable than not that a move against the Prime Minister will be made and would succeed but an enormous amount can happen in the next four months or so. Events could be her friend or her foe.
The rules
The rules, as Labour MPs could ruefully acknowledge, matter a lot in leadership elections. In the case of the Conservative Party, all that an aspiring leader needs to have is a proposer and a seconder who are members of the House of Commons. If there is only one contender so nominated that person is elected unopposed (as Michael Howard was in 2003). If there are two candidates then the process is that MPs are by-passed and the decision moves directly to the party membership.
There is a caveat to this. Conservative MPs could choose to hold an indicative ballot between the two runners so as to afford the wider membership information about parliamentary sentiment. This card, or the threat of it, might yet prove to be a crucial factor if Mrs May is compelled to stand down and a contest starts. If there are three or more candidates nominated then Conservative MPs vote by exhaustive ballots until just two names are available. As we discovered in 2016, if one of those two options withdraws then the membership element of the race is abandoned and a de facto coronation would take place.
The fact that MPs are crucial both in triggering an election (at least theoretically) and as the opening stage in the succession procedure means that, in effect, bar highly unusual circumstances, a sitting leader is only likely to be dispensed with and an election initiated when Parliament is sitting. It is this factor, with the summer recess due to start on 20 July and the House of Commons hence then out of action bar a short spell in September, that makes the October to December period very relevant. The House comes back properly on 9 October and essentially is then sitting for the rest of this year.
The candidates
There are, at the moment, three names being considered seriously as the successor to the Prime Minister. They are Philip Hammond, the Chancellor, Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary, and David Davis, Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union. Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary, has her fans but the combination of comparative inexperience and a very small majority in her own seat is probably fatal for her chances. Where she chooses to place her support would be of real importance.
Mr Hammond is at his strongest around the Cabinet table but may be at his weakest within the party membership. He would have a strong chance of winning if it were a secret ballot of senior colleagues but he is not that well known to the 125,000 or so card-carrying members and probably seen, rather unfairly, as an uncharismatic ‘wet fish’. The nickname ‘Spreadsheet Phil’ sort of says it all really. He was also a Remainer in the referendum campaign (and a less reluctant one than Mrs May) and is the champion of the ‘softer Brexit’ cause in the Cabinet today. These could prove impossible liabilities.
Mr Johnson is in almost precisely the opposite situation. Some of his fellow Cabinet members would rather hack their own legs off than see him as First Lord of the Treasury. He is deemed unpredictable and unreliable. That sentiment extends to some MPs as well but not as forcefully. The suspicion (or fear in certain quarters) is that he would have far more appeal to the ordinary membership. He is, of course, a Leaver, although many suspected this to be more a matter of calculation than conviction.
The final current option is Mr Davis, who sits in the middle of the spectrum. He had broad but not overwhelming backing in the Cabinet, among MPs and the party faithful. His age (he will be 69 on 23 December) means that he could be presented as a figure who would see the Brexit negotiations through to the moment of departure but not necessarily lead the Conservatives into the next election. He is a Leaver as a matter of principle, not opportunism. In a very ‘Nixon Goes to China’ manner, this means that he might well be better placed politically to deliver a softer Brexit than either the Chancellor of the Foreign Secretary.
If Mr Hammond is not inclined to make a fight of it, and if Mrs May’s end comes in October as the result of a Cabinet-level decision endorsed by MPs, then Mr Davis may well be the one who enjoys Christmas Turkey at Chequers in December 2017.
Tim Hames
Director General, BVCA