The fragmentation between Tory MPs and ordinary members does the party no good - Labour knows it all too well
Many Tory members feel no joy at the prospect of voting for either Rishi Sunak or Liz Truss - and therein lies the distinction between them and Tory MPs.
The final decision over the Conservative leadership contest has now been left with Conservative Party members. Conservative MPs have done their job. They have whittled the eight candidates (who qualified) down to the final two - Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss. Both teams are understandably jubilant at their respective candidate: firstly, for getting this far in the contest and, secondly, now aiming at the top prize - being prime minister. However, there was a large cluster of Tory MPs who neither originally supported Sunak nor Truss and, to their understandable frustration, had to back one of the two remaining. That understandable frustration, though, was not exclusive to Tory MPs but to party members, too.
If you’re a Conservative Party member viewing this contest from the outside, I’d say you’re probably experiencing one of the following two emotions: happy, excited and inspired to support either Sunak or Truss; dismayed, gloomy and worried about the future prospects for the Conservatives under a Sunak or Truss premiership. A bit like the rest of Britain, you could say. However, what is clear is this: the outrage with which party members feel has not been recognised nor noticed by most Tory MPs. Some Conservative Party members - whom, despite fervent disagreements over myriad political things, I can call friends - are dismally unhappy about the choice they, along with 160,000 or so others, now have to contend with. They say, rightly, about this supposed fresh start for the party (and country), yet Tory MPs have narrowed it down to Boris Johnson’s Foreign Secretary - Truss - and his former Chancellor - Sunak - who resigned only a week before the prime minister realised it was over.
It makes the whole situation feel a tad more serious when thousands of Tory members have urged the party to include Boris Johnson’s name on the ballot paper for the leadership contest. As well as that, the prime minister has been reportedly telling aides that he will return as prime minister within a year - another spectacular glimpse at Mr Johnson’s view of all this as a media establishment stitch-up.
It feels a little like we’ve travelled back to 2016 but bear with me for a moment. Imagine the scene over again: Theresa May succeeds David Cameron as prime minister, inheriting a divided country, yet committed to ensuring the UK leaves the EU. On the opposition benches, Labour plunges itself into internal war over Jeremy Corbyn’s participation (or the lack of it for the Remain argument) in the EU referendum campaign. As well as 2022’s, the 2016 Tory leadership contest - eventually fought between May and Andrea Leadsom before the latter dropped out - was filled with Thatcher comparisons, just like this contest six years later: the Daily Mail proclaimed ‘WHO’LL BE THE NEW MAGGIE?’ on one of their front pages in July 2016, but I will focus on Labour’s then internal war and how it compares to today with the Tories.
As we know, Jeremy Corbyn’s participation in the EU referendum had been criticised not just by many pro-Remain Tories but strong numbers, I’d say, of Labour Members of Parliament. This eventually led to 172 MPs (i.e. the majority) within the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) announcing they had no confidence in Corbyn with dozens of Shadow Cabinet ministers quitting and, therefore, an internal war beginning as a result. It then led to a leadership election, of course, where Corbyn eventually secured a larger mandate than in 2015, a year previously, when he was originally elected: he secured 59.5% in 2015; 61.8% in 2016. This whole episode is relevant today because of the fragmenting link between the Conservative Party and its membership for several reasons.
First because many members are unhappy with Boris Johnson’s removal as leader and prime minister by so few individuals. From those aggrieved members’ perspectives, it was the membership who elected him, hence their argument about his name being on the ballot in the leadership contest.
And second because of the direction Boris Johnson has taken: more liberal centrist members are furious that the prime minister has broken the law, ripped up standards in public life as well as myriad other scandals; more right-wing members deplore Boris Johnson’s governance because, for them, it’s swayed too far towards socialist ideology and the levels of state interventionism have been far too vast - not just for the right-wingers, but for the liberal centrists, too.
Labour’s 2016 leadership contest presented a challenge where, at that time, there were just over 230 Labour MPs, most of whom resented Jeremy Corbyn continuing as leader. The membership, though, resented Labour MPs’ meddling, as it seems, and thus gave him a bigger mandate. By the way, this is not advice to the Conservative Party, urging them to follow all of Jeremy Corbyn’s premiership, particularly over the 2019 election, but it is a lesson over the dichotomy that can occur between party memberships and parliamentarians.
This Tory leadership contest, here in 2022, presents an equally tough challenge: yes … Boris Johnson played a significant part in his own downfall - we all know that! - but it was the several dozen resignations that ultimately led to him calling it a day (for now, anyway). In the end, Conservative MPs - the majority, at least - believed it was time to go, but so did the majority of Labour MPs back in 2016. I am not advocating here that Boris Johnson deserves to be on the ballot paper - absolutely not! - but it is a challenge for whoever secures the victory that they must repair that fragmenting relationship.
A victory for Rishi Sunak in this contest, I believe, could lead to as much blood as a Sunday night ITV drama has. Whether it be the former Chancellor’s flawed understanding of economics or, from the perspective of those aggrieved members I discussed earlier, his disloyalty to the prime minister, Sunak will not find it an easy ride (from a party point of view).
A victory for Liz Truss will produce less blood and gore, I believe. One cannot be fully sure about the level of toxicity with her at the helm, but Truss’s offer of immediate tax cuts as well as her loyalty to Boris Johnson might just be enough for some Conservative Party associates.
Nevertheless, it seems that the contest will leave a chunk of the Conservative Party membership feeling gloomy and uninspired by the choices at hand. Two individuals who, despite their contradictions and economic paradoxes as of now, served and sat inches close to the man who is departing. Whether on Boris Johnson’s departure, the ideological direction of the party or other important matters, maybe some Conservative Party members might even feel that it’s best to just sit this one out.