05 Jun 2019

The Candidates. Making (some) sense of the many contenders for the Conservative leadership

7238C76F-0804-4B72-83DF3F1972055BC8.jpg

Considering the misery that Theresa May has endured as Prime Minister it is amazing that anyone wants to be her successor. Despite this, there is clearly no shortage of aspirants to become leader of the Conservative Party and hence the next Prime Minister. At one stage, there were no less than 13 declared candidates and another six who were publicly contemplating coming forward. This was a state of affairs which attracted considerable comment, even ridicule. It was blamed on the fact that the original rules for the contest allowed an MP to stand with a mere two MPs as their nominators.

So in the best traditions of the UK Conservative Party (which has never much liked the constraint of ‘rules’), the terms and conditions for the election were suddenly rewritten yesterday. In a switch, which would probably be illegal (or condemned as improper) if a commercial organisation were to undertake it, the party has decided that eight MPs rather than two are now needed for a contender to be accepted. Furthermore, any individual who does not obtain 16 votes on the first round will be eliminated, with 32 votes serving as the threshold for the second ballot. These changes will serve both to reduce the number who make it to the first vote and to speed up the entire process. The clear objective is to ensure that the parliamentary stage of the leadership race is over by 20 June.

What will this mean for an election that will still probably have a quite large number of figures in it? It would also appear that like so much of British politics at the moment it defies rational assessment. That is a little harsh. There are means of dividing up the contenders into different categories and through that shed some light on what their strategies may be and what their chances of victory are. As there is no single front-runner (the odds offered by bookmakers on Boris Johnson exaggerate his prospects at the moment) it is not illogical for more MPs than usual to consider putting themselves forward. The names of those presently in the frame could be placed into five distinct groupings.

The Establishment Front-runners

The above title refers to those candidates who have served in Mrs May’s Cabinet (and that of David Cameron’s beforehand), who voted for her various attempts at enacting the Withdrawal Agreement on each occasion that it came before the House of Commons, and who did not leave office when she set out the terms of the Withdrawal Agreement Bill shortly before her enforced resignation.

The two individuals who fit this description are Michael Gove, the Environment Secretary, and Jeremy Hunt, the Foreign Secretary. Mr Gove was the Chairman of the Leave campaign in 2016, whereas Mr Hunt campaigned for Remain, which is a relative asset for the former. But Mr Gove then stood against Boris Johnson in June 2016 forcing him out of the leadership race and creating a clear path to victory for Mrs May, which is seen as a black-mark against him for many within the Conservative Party.

The two men are essentially competing for the broad centre ground of the parliamentary party. Each is presenting himself as better positioned than the soon to be ex-PM was to obtain additional concessions from the European Union on the substance of how the UK departs from the EU, and/or to find a formula which will fuse together the DUP, the 26 hold-out members of the European Research Group and those 20-30 Labour MPs from staunchly Leave seats who are completely opposed to a second referendum.

Both men would strongly prefer a deal (even if a further extension of Article 50 was needed to create the time to secure it) to a no-deal Brexit but are obliged to sound more willing to entertain the possibility of a no-deal outcome to win adherents. Received wisdom is that it is improbable that both of them can make it to the final two candidates who are put before the membership, but it would be a surprise if one of them were not on that list.

The Insurgent Front-runners

This sub-section involves those candidates who were once senior members of Mrs May’s Cabinet but who subsequently resigned over Brexit, and voted against her Withdrawal Agreement on the first and second occasion that it came before the House of Commons, but reluctantly backed the third effort. They are Boris Johnson, the ex-Foreign Secretary, and Dominic Raab, the ex-Brexit Secretary.

Mr Johnson has the advantage that he is much better known than his rival. He has the disadvantage that much more is known about him and his character than is true for Mr Raab. They are both fishing in very similar waters in that their core constituency consists of solidly pro-Brexit MPs but each of them is trying to broaden their appeal beyond that. The best guess is that it is unlikely that they will both be in the final two, but as of today it would be quite a shock if neither of them were on the shortlist. They are fighting a bitter and brutal battle for MP backers.

The Establishment Alternatives

There are then three contenders who share much in common with Mr Gove and Mr Hunt, but who, as of this moment, would seem to have fewer supporters among those who have declared their vote. They are Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, Sajid Javid, the Home Secretary, and Rory Stewart, the International Development Secretary.

All three embraced Remain in 2016 and all three endorsed the Withdrawal Agreement in its various manifestations. The three of them have different tactical stands on Brexit in this contest. Mr Stewart has nailed his colours to the mast in his opposition to a no-deal Brexit. Mr Javid, by contrast, is seeking to sound more open to the idea while preferring to pull off a new version of a Withdrawal Agreement through a fresh dialogue with Dublin. Mr Hancock is located between the two but is closer to Mr Stewart in sentiment.

What all three have in common is that they have a respectable but insufficient level of support to prevail unless one of Mr Gove or Mr Hunt does or says something that proves to be terminal to their ambitions. In such conditions, one of these three would present themselves as the alternative to those who originally planned to align with one of the former Establishment front-runners. This being the parliamentary Conservative Party, the possibility of one of the two establishment figures blowing themselves up can never be entirely discounted.

The Insurgent Alternatives

In a mirror image to the above, there are aspirants who backed Leave in 2016 who appear to have less support than either Mr Johnson or Mr Raab but are making themselves available should either of those two individuals destroy their own prospects by word or by deed. In the case of the highly unpredictable former Mayor of London, that is always conceivable even if he is striving to be more disciplined in his message in this ballot.

The insurgent alternatives are Esther McVey, who quit the Cabinet - as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions - when the very first version of the Withdrawal Agreement was published (although she subsequently voted for it in Parliament at a later stage), and Andrea Leadsom, the former Leader of the House of Commons, who was the very last Cabinet minister to part company with Mrs May having supported the Withdrawal Agreement three times but who was not prepared to lead the charge for the Withdrawal Agreement Bill. On the available evidence, it would take a dramatic turn of events for either of them to make the final two.

The Rest

If there are any ‘rest’ by the time that nominations close it is unlikely they will survive round one.

The most significant detail of the new version of the rules is that the election will end in ‘the week of 22 July’. As the House of Commons enters recess on 25 July this means there is no realistic chance of another attempt at pushing a version of the Withdrawal Agreement Bill through until September at the earliest and the second week of October more credibly. Even though the extended EU deadline of 31 October might seem a decent way off, in practical terms the parliamentary time that exists to meet its requirements is already looking extremely tight indeed. Hence the fundamental issue when the Conservative leadership election finally reaches the membership stage is whether (a) there can be a Withdrawal Agreement by 31 October, (b) a new Prime Minister could truly opt for no-deal in a Parliament where a majority plainly rejects that stance, or (c) there is another extension to Article 50.

Tim Hames
Director General, BVCA


×

Update your login details

We updated our website and supporting systems on 12th December. 

If you previously had an account, please reset your password. If it's your first-time logging in, please register to create an account. For assistance, please contact the BVCA Membership Team

Login