Blame Boris Johnson. There is much, of course, for which you could do so. But this is an article about Conservative party members, and our right to vote for our leader. Since the leadership rules were changed in 1998, party members have elected only four of our seven chiefs. Michael Howard, Theresa May, and Rishi Sunak were all imposed without a contest, by either being the only candidate nominated, or having their opponent drop out.
Understandably, some party members are smarting at having imposed upon them a leader they rejected in an election less than two months ago. But this is where, I suggest, that those of that disposition direct their ire at our last-Prime-Minister-but-one – and why the debacle of this summer and autumn should prompt a serious review of our party’s internal democracy.
If his own campaign team, members of the 1922 committee, and reports in the papers are to be believed, the former Prime Minister had sufficient nominations to stand in last week’s election. That members were robbed of a contest was down to his decision not to run.
Johnson was clear as to why he did not do so. A PM needs the support of their MPs to govern. Had Johnson gone to the party membership, he would have done so without a third of his MPs backing him, and with a majority behind Sunak. If he had then been elected, his leadership would be fundamentally unstable, his government chaotic, and the party’s reputation for sanity junked.
He had already seen the fate of his successor. By the end of this summer’s contest, even once it was clear that Truss would win, our list of which candidate MPs were backing had her on 149, out of 357. Her position was weak from the start, and she undermined it further through everything from poor communication, to a reliance on loyalists, to a failure to roll the pitch for her various measures. She had a poor hand and played it abysmally.
This was not an outcome that was unforeseen. In his own article backing Sunak, our Editor suggested that the best over-riding reason to do so was that he had the support of the most MPs. Moreover, we have an unhappy precedent of a leader elected by members who placed second amongst MPs. Iain Duncan-Smith’s two year tenure was dominated by MPs irreconciled to his leadership and his inability to get them onside.
History repeats itself – the first time as the tragedy of the Quiet Man, the second time as the farce of our shortest-serving Prime Minister. Marx didn’t name a third since. France hasn’t yet to see a third Napoleon, despite De Gaulle and Macron’s best efforts. Nonetheless, Johnson’s elevation would surely have been our party’s Götterdämmerung. To avoid going all Wagnerian, MPs acted to circumvent members, and prevent another contest. They were the right to do so.
This admission requires a bit of a mea culpa on ConservativeHome’s part. In our infancy, we led the way in co-ordinating opposition to Michael Howard’s attempts to abolish the members’ vote in 2005. Since then, we have always maintained that the current system is the best balance between allowing MPs to choose the candidates they have the most faith in and ensuring that the person who leads our party has the support of its members.
However, the calamities of this year – real and potential – have forced us to admit that this approach is no longer tenable. A leader cannot serve and cannot govern if they do not have the support of their MPs. We are choosing a potential Prime Minister, not a potential President. For the sake of the country, it is more important that our leader can command the confidence of the Commons than if they are approved of by 170,000 or so Tory members. The current system must go.
This is a big concession. It is one neither we, nor the wider membership, will make lightly. Yet there is a bargain to be struck – and it is one that recognises the defects of our current leadership election system whilst rectifying other problems with our party’s internal democracy.
Last year, our survey suggested that over half of our panel believe the post of Party Chairman should be elected by the membership. 70 per cent wanted the power to directly elect at least some of the Party Board – the party’s ultimate decision-making body, in charge of matters involving fundraising membership, and candidates – and that three quarters agreed that, in general, the leadership should be more accountable to members.
This was of a piece with a previous survey we held in 2015. Since the losing of the right to elect the leader is such a significant change, it could be balanced by allowing members to elect the Chairman of the Party Board. Since this individual is the party’s chief fundraiser, this would provide democratic control over the party’s funds – especially as no member is currently elected.
They could be ask to account annually for the money they have raised, and where it is being spent. That would mean that party members who toil throughout the year to raise funds can feel they are getting genuine value for money. It also adds an element of long-term thinking into a party that so often falls prey to the whims of a particular leader, election cycle, and political approach.
Alongside this, we have called – both this year, and earlier – for association members to have a greater say in choosing their candidates. A situation where members arrive to vote on three potential candidates chosen by CCHQ without them previously being informed about that is a stark reminder of how centralised our party has become.
Our solution is for a long-list of six, drawn up between CCHQ and local associations, with three proposed from both. It would then be for the latter to choose a final three, and a candidate from those.
Finally, both Daniel Hannan and myself have argued in recent weeks that members should have more of a say over policy-making. Allowing party members to debate or approve policies at conference would not only elevate that annual festival from the corporate torpor into which it had partially sank, but would also help counteract the wild swings in agendas we have seen in recent years. One can but dream of a repeat of the approved 1950 motion to build 300,000 homes a year.
The terms are therefore clear. The price to pay for MPs taking back control of leadership elections is greater party democracy. It will not address all the problems or grievances that have been thrown into stark relief in this and recent years, but a bargain can and should be struck. Allow members to at least elect the Board Chairman, and give them some say over the party’s funds.