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They’ve been touring, meeting people, attending hustings, and there’s just over a week of summer still to go. But soon, the Conservative leadership cavalcade will head to Westminster where serious choices have to be made.
The reality of the next stages of this leadership contest is that the Conservative party has two separate electorates, and both take some soundings on the views of a third body doesn’t even have a vote.
These are the parliamentary party and the membership. They often have very different prisms through which they view how best to make their choice; they vote at different times; and whilst the first gets the widest choice and more chances to vote, the second gets the final say.
We could spend some time debating whether this level of complexity is ideal, but it won’t change the facts, eligibility and the timetable right now, and therefore I’m not sure it’s time well spent. I don’t love the phrase, but “we are where we are”.
In the aftermath of a general election that made this leadership contest inevitable, some elements of both electorates have publicly doubted the motives – and indeed suitability – of the other to make a “good choice”. But unless these two electorates compliment each others’ choices, and understand where the other is coming from, there’s a risk of starting out on the road to re-election with an inbuilt dissatisfaction that can have a shelf life of years.
We’ve seen it happen before, and what the ultimate result can be. Just saying “we must unite” is far easier than actually making it happen – but all leaders want it to happen, because they know the deep problems that abound if it doesn’t.
Because there are secret ballots, the parliamentary party does perhaps invite questions about the motives and prisms each MP is using in their voting choices. There is undoubtedly an impression given that: “this is what we do, but no you may not check our homework”.
There are also those MPs who every leadership team think is “theirs” because that individual has told all of them they are. Frustrated campaign whips are not unaware of the myriad strategies that can be deployed to either get someone out, or keep another afloat before ditching them in another round.
That we all know these strategies exist – and stories about how they were organised and deployed in the past are not hard to find – tends to fuel suspicion.
However, MPs who have to fight and win elections to be an MP (and thereby earned a vote in this one) will often have foremost in their mind who they think will be the most electable; conversely, they worry about any they consider to be unelectable. That’s where the noises of that third electorate, the British public, sometimes come into play.
There will also be a competency judgement: are these candidates going to actually handle being leader, and potentially prime minister? I’m also just going to say it, because it happens: some MP’s will ask themselves does this person “look the part” – do they have “star quality” or, as one senior Tory said to me, “do they have the crackle of electricity?”
These are completely unscientific judgements, but they have every right to make them. Members should at least accept that the prisms MPs use to choose may not be the same as theirs.
Of course some members ask themselves similar questions, but they won’t do the “whittling down”. It’s important for members to try and understand why MPs do get to do that job.
Remember, under our constitutional system the eventual winner of this contest of will lead the Conservative party in Parliament, and it is from solid support on the green benches the leader’s authority stems. Lose the confidence of your MPs, and you’ll soon lose the job.
The parliamentary party therefore has a very clear duty to the wider party: to deliver a choice of two candidates either of whom they would be happy to serve under. So then we come to the second electorate, the party members.
Now, I have a healthy respect for members in general. Joining in and signing up can be a target for easy, lazy cynicism. Groucho Marx famous line about “not wanting to belong to any club that would have me as a member” makes me smile. However it is also the vibe of those who never like to be too pinned to a belief, a stance, a tribe or a team.
There are those, and we’ve all met them, who can quite happily enjoy your successes but like to step backwards into a hedge when the going gets tough, or they are asked themselves to take a stand.
This party’s members signed up to something, are committed to a cause because they believe in it and their party’s ability to make change for the better. They are more than individuals who sometimes lend their vote at a general election, but are instead active participants in the machinery of a political party – and that commitment earns them a say.
This site was created to augment that voice, and I firmly believe it should always be heard.
It is also no surprise to me that members often support leadership candidates who reflect their own ideological beliefs. They like the feel of candidates who say what that party member thinks, and feel comfortable with contenders who are equally comfortable expressing their values and what they stand for. I feel able to say this, because I’m in the second electorate.
The ideological prism of course is by no means exclusive to party members, nor the pragmatic prism to MPs. But both prisms need to coexist in a carefully balanced equation because when they aren’t, the result can be catastrophic.
So let’s confront the elephant in the room: there are some who blame mass membership leadership votes for “bad choices”.
It’s something of a lazy cliché in political journalistic circles that the least qualified people to choose a party leader are the members of that party. Those who so think cite Labour saddling itself with Jeremy Corbyn (who I genuinely believe made them unelectable).
However, and this is really important, our members are not choosing the next leader of the party from as broad a pool as Labour offers. They are choosing from two candidates put forward by MPs, either of which those MPs should be happy to serve under. That should be the bridge for both electorates to make a good choice.
How is going to play out? So far this contest is really open. Even speaking to the six teams I don’t sense anyone standing thinks they’ve sealed the deal, or are running ahead. When you are in the business of gathering intelligence for you, the readers of this site, the most unhelpful six words in existence are “this really could go either way”!
But I do want to sound a warning. The final MP votes, from four down to the crucial two, will take place after the party conference. Were two candidates to have a palpably good conference and get noticeable warmth and enthusiasm from party members there, then get scrubbed out of contention by MPs before the members vote, that is a scenario I can see causing the winner, the party, and our MPs a huge headache.
It’s not inevitable, and it may never happen. But both electorates should watch for the risk because that third electorate, the public – the one without any vote, yet – will be watching to see if the party gets this right, and will remind everyone in the future if the party ends up getting it wrong
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