On top of the eye-catching speculation about the horse race to replace Rishi Sunak as leader of the Conservative Party (and we’ll be releasing our panel’s views on that later this week), there has been no little speculation about the actual mechanics of the contest. How long will it run – and should the Party anoint a caretaker leader to oversee it?
There is a case to argue either way. Were the contest to run on some of the longer timetables being proposed, for example over and beyond this year’s Conservative Party Conference in October, it might be awkward for the former Prime Minister to still be the person squaring off against Sir Keir Starmer over the dispatch box at PMQs.
On the other hand, there is no obvious candidate for a caretaker leader and there is no ready mechanism for anointing one. Which may be why two-thirds of our panel of Tory members believe that Sunak should remain in place until the leadership contest is concluded, versus just over a quarter who favour him stepping down and a caretaker being installed.
That position also makes their views on the length of the race no great surprise: more than half want the leadership contest concluded by Party Conference in October, versus less than a third who favour a longer contest that runs over it and less than a fifth who want a short race that’s over by the end of the parliamentary recess.
Holding the race on this timetable means giving up the opportunity to engage members in the process with a hustings in Birmingham, but would allow the new leader to make their debut at conference (perhaps one of the few occasions the Tories will reliably get media attention in the months ahead) and avoid the awkwardness of Sunak having to deliver another leader’s speech.
Stay tuned to ConservativeHome later this week for more findings from our survey, including members’ views on democratic reform of the Party, what to do about Reform UK, and of course – who should be leader?
