Richard Patient is an entrepreneur, and founder of property communications company Thorncliffe | Your Shout. He was London Chairman of Business for Britain during the EU referendum.
The young Tim Montgomerie – the one that founded and was the first editor of this august website – will be spinning in his proverbial grave.
Blaming Boris (I’m not sure why), ConHome appears to be running a campaign to remove the vote from members to elect the leader of our party (and to be fair to them, allow members to elect the party Board Chairman instead, as well as give them some say over party funds).
It’s a campaign I profoundly disagree with, so I am grateful to the new editor (ok, not so new) to allow me to put the case against.
ConHome has always been about giving a bigger voice for the Tory grassroots, and their regular polls have constantly been proved to be accurate and influential. They have also campaigned for members’ rights, and Montgomerie’s first campaign was against Michael Howard’s unsuccessful attempt to stop party members choosing the Tory leader.
ConHome has a long and distinguished history, and that’s why it pains me to see it reaching the wrong conclusions to the recent leadership election and putting forward such a fundamentally wrong solution.
It’s not just our hallowed editors here, but also leading figures in the party such as William Hague, who on Tuesday wrote in The Times that members “ought not to pick the next leader”. Hague, of course, presided over the introduction of the party’s rules for electing a leader in 1998, but now says that those rules are discredited.
I have reached a diametrically-opposed conclusion regarding this recent leadership election. I believe the fact that the prime minister could be elected in a matter of a few days – albeit without a vote from the membership this time – shows that the rules work.
We should remember that the rules, as currently constituted, effectively allow for a coronation. The members were side-lined this time, for better or worse, and the rules allow it.
It’s good to look at history to see how the rules worked in each case.
The first exhibit is the 2016 election, where Theresa May was effectively given a coronation after Andrea Leadsom withdrew. May gained about 60 per cent of her parliamentary colleagues’ votes in the second ballot, to Leadsom’s 25 per cent. Should we blame MPs for electing such a wholly unsuited leader, and take their rights away as a result?
The argument goes that MPs are supposed to know their colleagues, so are given more rights to whittle down the choice. Yet they elected a remainer just weeks after the historic Brexit referendum, and she went on to lose our majority in 2017 and then gained a historic low of 8.8 per cent national vote share in the EU election that should never have been called. Do we still think MPs are infallible?
The second exhibit is when Iain Duncan Smith was elected in 2001. Party members elected a leader who, again, was wholly unsuited to be party leader, and ConHome cites this as evidence to withdraw our voting rights.
Unfortunately, we cannot draw this conclusion. Party members were given a choice of two – an inadequate two as it turned out, and had to choose between IDS and Ken Clarke. Earlier in the parliamentary stages, a much more suitable candidate – Michael Portillo – had been knocked out by MPs, much to the angst of party members, by a wafer-thin margin of just one vote.
We should remember this was immediately after the 2001 general election, when Hague had launched his “last chance to save the pound”, and members were growing increasingly eurosceptic. Clarke made it very clear he thought we should be signing up to the EU platform; he had previously appeared on a platform alongside Michael Heseltine and Tony Blair to promote Britain in Europe.
Members made what they believed was the only sensible choice and backed the Eurosceptic candidate, in the expectation that MPs knew these candidates and put forward ones that were proven. Again, this is evidence that MPs are far from infallible.
A third exhibit is the election of David Cameron. Immediately after the 2005 general election, Howard promoted two young bucks to very senior shadow cabinet posts – Cameron and a preposterously young fellow called George Osborne, then only 32.
When the election was called, everyone expected the most experienced candidate David Davis (DD as he was affectionately known) to claim the prize. Clarke put in his candidature for a third time (members were audibly groaning) – he also opposed Hague in 1997, as did one of the darlings of the party at the time, Liam Fox.
MPs knocked out Clarke first, then Fox and presented members with two: Davis and Cameron. Days earlier, Cameron had given the barnstorming speech of his life – unusually (at the time) without notes – and the membership was electrified.
MPs had backed DD 29 per cent to Cameron’s 45 per cent, and members overwhelmingly agreed, giving him a massive majority of 67 per cent in the members’ vote. MPs can sometimes get it right.
A fourth exhibit is more controversial, because it relates to the recent election of Liz Truss. Some people cite this as evidence that members mucked up – after all, they elected someone who the country quickly found out was unsuited to be prime minister.
Others, myself included, argue that it was the fault of MPs, because they were the ones who gave the membership the choice that they did, when some members would have preferred to have been able to vote for Suella Braverman, Kemi Badenoch, or even to choose Johnson again.
One of Truss’s major faults – her clear inability to communicate properly and perhaps her lack of resolve – surely should have been exposed by MPs themselves.
Much as Rishi Sunak’s backers will be pained to hear this, members vowed to elect “anyone but Rishi” because he was perceived as one of the major causes of Johnson’s downfall (he who wields the knife never wears the crown), as well as the non-dom, green-card and high-tax issues. To members, this was a perfectly rational vote, even if they may have elected Truss by default.
So we come to the final exhibit, the most recent election. To speed up the election, Sir Graham Brady sensibly increased the threshold for MPs to stand to 100, which locked most candidates including Penny Mordaunt.
Johnson reportedly achieved the threshold, but perhaps seeing what happened to Truss, pulled out when he realized Sunak had an overwhelming number of MPs. MPs got their wish to deny a members vote that time, but they acted within the rules. It’s perhaps worth saying that MPs were right to do so.
One of the main criticisms of the summer election was the length of the membership stage, something that the party couldn’t afford this time around, and it sensibly addressed with their online-only voting system – which, with a few tweaks, can be replicated and made more robust for the next election.
There will be some who think the rules should be changed so members always get a vote – I’m aware some feel very strongly about this. I’m prepared to steer the compromise path, and accept the rules as they are, allowing the second nominated candidate to pull out if they think it’s prudent to do so, as has now happened three times under these rules.
I’m all in favour of the ConHome mission to giving a bigger voice to the Tory grassroots, and allowing members to elect the Board Chairman and having a voice on funds would be welcome. Yet I think they fundamentally miss the mark if they believe taking away the rights of the membership to elect the leader is the solution.
The great Conservative Party no longer elects leaders by the men in grey suits – although they got it right in 1941 when Churchill came to power. It no longer elects leaders just by an election of MPs – although they got it right in 1975 when Margaret Thatcher became our leader.
Let’s not take a retrograde step. Let’s tinker with the rules, as often happens. But denying the membership a vote, as ConHome appears to propose, would have given that young and youthful Tim Montgomerie sleepness nights.
Richard Patient is an entrepreneur, and founder of property communications company Thorncliffe | Your Shout. He was London Chairman of Business for Britain during the EU referendum.
The young Tim Montgomerie – the one that founded and was the first editor of this august website – will be spinning in his proverbial grave.
Blaming Boris (I’m not sure why), ConHome appears to be running a campaign to remove the vote from members to elect the leader of our party (and to be fair to them, allow members to elect the party Board Chairman instead, as well as give them some say over party funds).
It’s a campaign I profoundly disagree with, so I am grateful to the new editor (ok, not so new) to allow me to put the case against.
ConHome has always been about giving a bigger voice for the Tory grassroots, and their regular polls have constantly been proved to be accurate and influential. They have also campaigned for members’ rights, and Montgomerie’s first campaign was against Michael Howard’s unsuccessful attempt to stop party members choosing the Tory leader.
ConHome has a long and distinguished history, and that’s why it pains me to see it reaching the wrong conclusions to the recent leadership election and putting forward such a fundamentally wrong solution.
It’s not just our hallowed editors here, but also leading figures in the party such as William Hague, who on Tuesday wrote in The Times that members “ought not to pick the next leader”. Hague, of course, presided over the introduction of the party’s rules for electing a leader in 1998, but now says that those rules are discredited.
I have reached a diametrically-opposed conclusion regarding this recent leadership election. I believe the fact that the prime minister could be elected in a matter of a few days – albeit without a vote from the membership this time – shows that the rules work.
We should remember that the rules, as currently constituted, effectively allow for a coronation. The members were side-lined this time, for better or worse, and the rules allow it.
It’s good to look at history to see how the rules worked in each case.
The first exhibit is the 2016 election, where Theresa May was effectively given a coronation after Andrea Leadsom withdrew. May gained about 60 per cent of her parliamentary colleagues’ votes in the second ballot, to Leadsom’s 25 per cent. Should we blame MPs for electing such a wholly unsuited leader, and take their rights away as a result?
The argument goes that MPs are supposed to know their colleagues, so are given more rights to whittle down the choice. Yet they elected a remainer just weeks after the historic Brexit referendum, and she went on to lose our majority in 2017 and then gained a historic low of 8.8 per cent national vote share in the EU election that should never have been called. Do we still think MPs are infallible?
The second exhibit is when Iain Duncan Smith was elected in 2001. Party members elected a leader who, again, was wholly unsuited to be party leader, and ConHome cites this as evidence to withdraw our voting rights.
Unfortunately, we cannot draw this conclusion. Party members were given a choice of two – an inadequate two as it turned out, and had to choose between IDS and Ken Clarke. Earlier in the parliamentary stages, a much more suitable candidate – Michael Portillo – had been knocked out by MPs, much to the angst of party members, by a wafer-thin margin of just one vote.
We should remember this was immediately after the 2001 general election, when Hague had launched his “last chance to save the pound”, and members were growing increasingly eurosceptic. Clarke made it very clear he thought we should be signing up to the EU platform; he had previously appeared on a platform alongside Michael Heseltine and Tony Blair to promote Britain in Europe.
Members made what they believed was the only sensible choice and backed the Eurosceptic candidate, in the expectation that MPs knew these candidates and put forward ones that were proven. Again, this is evidence that MPs are far from infallible.
A third exhibit is the election of David Cameron. Immediately after the 2005 general election, Howard promoted two young bucks to very senior shadow cabinet posts – Cameron and a preposterously young fellow called George Osborne, then only 32.
When the election was called, everyone expected the most experienced candidate David Davis (DD as he was affectionately known) to claim the prize. Clarke put in his candidature for a third time (members were audibly groaning) – he also opposed Hague in 1997, as did one of the darlings of the party at the time, Liam Fox.
MPs knocked out Clarke first, then Fox and presented members with two: Davis and Cameron. Days earlier, Cameron had given the barnstorming speech of his life – unusually (at the time) without notes – and the membership was electrified.
MPs had backed DD 29 per cent to Cameron’s 45 per cent, and members overwhelmingly agreed, giving him a massive majority of 67 per cent in the members’ vote. MPs can sometimes get it right.
A fourth exhibit is more controversial, because it relates to the recent election of Liz Truss. Some people cite this as evidence that members mucked up – after all, they elected someone who the country quickly found out was unsuited to be prime minister.
Others, myself included, argue that it was the fault of MPs, because they were the ones who gave the membership the choice that they did, when some members would have preferred to have been able to vote for Suella Braverman, Kemi Badenoch, or even to choose Johnson again.
One of Truss’s major faults – her clear inability to communicate properly and perhaps her lack of resolve – surely should have been exposed by MPs themselves.
Much as Rishi Sunak’s backers will be pained to hear this, members vowed to elect “anyone but Rishi” because he was perceived as one of the major causes of Johnson’s downfall (he who wields the knife never wears the crown), as well as the non-dom, green-card and high-tax issues. To members, this was a perfectly rational vote, even if they may have elected Truss by default.
So we come to the final exhibit, the most recent election. To speed up the election, Sir Graham Brady sensibly increased the threshold for MPs to stand to 100, which locked most candidates including Penny Mordaunt.
Johnson reportedly achieved the threshold, but perhaps seeing what happened to Truss, pulled out when he realized Sunak had an overwhelming number of MPs. MPs got their wish to deny a members vote that time, but they acted within the rules. It’s perhaps worth saying that MPs were right to do so.
One of the main criticisms of the summer election was the length of the membership stage, something that the party couldn’t afford this time around, and it sensibly addressed with their online-only voting system – which, with a few tweaks, can be replicated and made more robust for the next election.
There will be some who think the rules should be changed so members always get a vote – I’m aware some feel very strongly about this. I’m prepared to steer the compromise path, and accept the rules as they are, allowing the second nominated candidate to pull out if they think it’s prudent to do so, as has now happened three times under these rules.
I’m all in favour of the ConHome mission to giving a bigger voice to the Tory grassroots, and allowing members to elect the Board Chairman and having a voice on funds would be welcome. Yet I think they fundamentally miss the mark if they believe taking away the rights of the membership to elect the leader is the solution.
The great Conservative Party no longer elects leaders by the men in grey suits – although they got it right in 1941 when Churchill came to power. It no longer elects leaders just by an election of MPs – although they got it right in 1975 when Margaret Thatcher became our leader.
Let’s not take a retrograde step. Let’s tinker with the rules, as often happens. But denying the membership a vote, as ConHome appears to propose, would have given that young and youthful Tim Montgomerie sleepness nights.