Last weekend, Giles Watling won his re-selection vote by a “very comfortable margin”, according to the BBC. He had been the latest Tory MP not automatically re-selected by his association executive; he has now been the latest to have been re-adopted by the wider membership.
Asides from Jonathan Djanogly, who lost his vote by 106 votes to 127, every other MP who has yet been de-selected by their executive and for whom the wider membership vote has occurred – leaving out, therefore, Marcus Fysh and Richard Bacon – has been re-adopted. Why might this be?
The argument of some after the first failures to re-adopt MPs was that it was a party membership rebelling against centre-left MPs after the defenestration of Johnson and Truss. ConservativeHome was sceptical of this. The MPs involved came from various wings of the party; local issues predominated.
Initially, I thought the commonality might be boundary changes. But whilst that certainly applied in Djanogly’s case, it was less of an issue for MPs such as Watling or Sally Ann-Hart in Hastings and Rye, whose seats had little or no change. Djanogly had also endured some particularly poor headlines.
This leaves still open the question of why there might be a difference in opinion between the executive and the membership. The former obviously have more frequent contact with their MP than the latter, which raises more opportunities for differences of opinion or personality to emerge.
Contrary to attempts to portray Tory membership as angry or mutinous, the reverse may well be true. The average Conservative is someone who wants a quiet life (socialism takes too many evenings). Without personal animosity, a majority of local members might see de-selection as a waste of time.
Of course, that does not mean that the wider membership may be unconcerned about the performance of their MPs or the wider government. But loyalty to the status quo is a very naturally Tory quality.
As ever, please contact at me at william@conservativehome.com with any selections hints, and tips you might have.