Don't disenfranchise the membership
John Wilkin
7th October 2024
Thoughts on Conservative leadership elections - past and present Less than a month from now the Conservative Party leadership contest which is currently underway will be over. As we enter the phase where the the final two are put to the Party’s members there we will no doubt hear from voices saying that the members should in future play no part, that it should be down to the MPs alone. Let’s consider whether previous contests justify that argument. The current election will be the fifth occasion on which the membership has been asked to vote. The previous four contests saw Iain Duncan Smith defeat Kenneth Clarke in 2001, David Cameron defeat David Davis in 2005, Boris Johnson defeat Jeremy Hunt in 2019 and Liz Truss defeat Rishi Sunak in 2022. Aside from those the leadership has changed hands over this period without a members’ vote on three occasions. Michael Howard and Rishi Sunak were both elected unopposed, and Andrea Leadsom’s withdrawal from the contest after making the final two in 2016 left Theresa May as the last woman standing. Can it be said that the members got it wrong on the four occasions on which they got to vote? David Cameron was the clear choice of both the membership and the MPs in 2005, and he brought electoral success. Boris Johnson, though a more controversial figure, was also favoured by both the MPs and the members, and whatever came later I would contend that he was the ideal candidate for the specific (and temporary) political landscape which existed in 2019.
Michael Heseltine, Tony Blair and Kenneth Clarke in 1999. This image played a part in blocking Clarke's leadership bid two years later. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PAThis leaves us with two contests, the first and the most recent, where the members are perceived to have “got it wrong”. It’s true that IDS’s leadership was not a success, but it’s hard to see how Kenneth Clarke would have been any more successful. The single currency was a totemic issue at the time, and Clarke’s support for membership put him at odds with the vast majority of members. A photo of him sharing a platform with Tony Blair advocating this in 1999 ultimately proved very damaging to his campaign. Under his leadership the Party’s divisions at the time would have become even more apparent.
In 2022 we ultimately saw how both candidates performed as Prime Minister and neither was really able to get to grips with the job. I believe that one reason Rishi Sunak lost that competition was that he proved to be a terrible campaigner, a lot of members were concerned that he was not the man to front a General Election campaign – concerns which were in hindsight completely justified. No doubt some would argue that he might have had an easier task if Liz Truss hadn’t “trashed the brand” beforehand, but either way I suspect we would still be in opposition.
Some point to Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party as the perfect example of why these matters should not be left to the members. Corbyn’s leadership was a disaster for Labour, but he was elected under different rules to ours, all the candidates nominated were offered to its membership. I do not presume to advise another party how it should choose its leader, but if Labour copied our rules Corbyn would almost certainly not have got to the final two. And our rules also make it easier remove a leader who is not up to the job.
The reality is that as things stand Conservative leaders are chosen by Conservative MPs, with rank and file members having a fairly limited input. I accept the argument that the MPs have a better idea of who is suitable to lead them, but their contribution should really filter out anyone who isn’t. It’s therefore not unreasonable for the membership to assume that any candidate who makes it to that stage is actually capable of leading the Party, and the country. The final vote effectively gives party activists an opportunity to veto the election of a leader with whom they would be really uncomfortable. Removing that veto would be a mistake.
7th October 2024
Thoughts on Conservative leadership elections - past and present Less than a month from now the Conservative Party leadership contest which is currently underway will be over. As we enter the phase where the the final two are put to the Party’s members there we will no doubt hear from voices saying that the members should in future play no part, that it should be down to the MPs alone. Let’s consider whether previous contests justify that argument. The current election will be the fifth occasion on which the membership has been asked to vote. The previous four contests saw Iain Duncan Smith defeat Kenneth Clarke in 2001, David Cameron defeat David Davis in 2005, Boris Johnson defeat Jeremy Hunt in 2019 and Liz Truss defeat Rishi Sunak in 2022. Aside from those the leadership has changed hands over this period without a members’ vote on three occasions. Michael Howard and Rishi Sunak were both elected unopposed, and Andrea Leadsom’s withdrawal from the contest after making the final two in 2016 left Theresa May as the last woman standing. Can it be said that the members got it wrong on the four occasions on which they got to vote? David Cameron was the clear choice of both the membership and the MPs in 2005, and he brought electoral success. Boris Johnson, though a more controversial figure, was also favoured by both the MPs and the members, and whatever came later I would contend that he was the ideal candidate for the specific (and temporary) political landscape which existed in 2019.
Michael Heseltine, Tony Blair and Kenneth Clarke in 1999. This image played a part in blocking Clarke's leadership bid two years later. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA
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