The Conservative Party must improve how they chose leaders
As I reach the conclusion of this series of articles about our Parliamentary system, I find the Conservative Party back where I started as a new MP in 2001 – in opposition, and about to select a new leader. Once again, the few remaining Conservative MPs face a Labour Party with a huge majority, and many years before the next election is due. After a terrible blow from the electorate, the Conservatives will hopefully be selecting the best person to take us forward. However, the current system for electing the new leader needs to be improved.
Despite the lazy stereotypes, Conservatives have never been afraid to conserve the best traditions and wisdom of the ages whilst reforming when required. It is this flexibility to adjust for changing times which has long been our greatest strength – unlike the Labour Party which is wedded to its socialist traditions, a major factor which has often conspired to keep them out of government.
Prior to 1965, Conservative Party leaders just ‘emerged’ from the consensus of MPs, Peers and party grandees. In 1965, however, after a controversial leadership process several years earlier which saw him somewhat unexpectedly win out over a field of other MPs thought to be more likely leadership material, Alec Douglas-Home introduced a ballot of Conservative MPs organised by the 1922 Committee.
In various forms these arrangements persisted until 1998, when a ballot of party members was introduced by then-leader William Hague following the landslide defeat the year before. The aim was to broaden the support for the Conservatives by involving the membership to a greater extent. An obvious inspiration was the Labour leader, Tony Blair, having himself been elected by a ballot of the Labour membership (amongst other elements) in 1994.
The Conservative system allows for MPs to whittle down the candidates to the final two, which are then put to the overall party membership. The Labour system differs in that all candidates nominated by MPs are put to the membership – this is how Jeremy Corbyn, with some nominations from MPs who should have been wiser, was able to go forward and win in 2015.
Other political parties have likewise opened up their leadership elections to the membership, a recent high-profile example being the SNP’s election following Nicola Sturgeon’s unexpected resignation, which led to Humza Yousuf’s brief and ill-starred stint as First Minister of Scotland. Yet the election of Yousuf, and of Corbyn and a few of the recent Conservative leaders, is leading some to call into question the wisdom of giving party members such a say in these contests.
The potential problems are well-rehearsed. Long gone are the days when political parties, including the Conservatives, could count their membership in the millions. In the 2020s, to be a member of a political party marks an individual out as the sizable exception, rather than the rule. As such, this increases the chances of party members being out of step with mainstream opinion in the general population, and candidates may play to these views in their campaigning. This is a problem for parties which, in trying to choose a new leader, are trying to broaden their appeal to the voting public in general. In particular, the members’ preferred candidate might be at odds with the views of non-members.
This is how the Conservatives, Labour and SNP found themselves led by (amongst others) Truss, Corbyn and Yousuf respectively. Even worse is when the choice of the membership is at odds with the views of the MPs who have to work with them – and who know them professionally in a way that ordinary party members don’t. This was especially true during the Corbyn years, who was defeated 172 votes to 40 in a vote of no confidence by Labour MPs yet still went on to win the subsequent leadership contest amongst the membership – by an even bigger margin than his initial win in 2015. In addition, Truss was the hands-down favourite of the Tory membership, even though she lost the initial MPs’ ballot to Sunak: we all know what happened next.
Whilst some go the whole hog and declare the membership should be completely stripped of their role in choosing the next Conservative leader, I do not quite go that far. We need to be careful and reflect that having a say in the leader is one of the few remaining perks of party members, many of whom already feel they are just fodder for donations and campaigning. In any case, such changes would require alterations to the party’s constitution, which would require a ‘supermajority’ from party members themselves.
I would favour a halfway house, preserving the ability of party members to participate as now in leadership contests when the party is in opposition, but leaving it up to MPs when the party is in government. I believe this is a reasonable compromise and would learn some lessons from the many leadership elections since 2016 – of which the first contest of 2022 should be the most sobering. In my assessment, this, and subsequent events over the following 50 days, is when the Conservatives lost the election, and these events will live long in voters’ memories. They must not be repeated in government.
When in opposition, I would also agree with the proposals floated by Sir Graham Brady that after Conservative MPs had whittled it down to the last two candidates, there should be a subsequent round of voting by MPs to give a final steer to the membership as to which candidate the MPs truly back now they know which two candidates are on offer. This would help avoid the situation in which Badenoch, Cleverly and Jenrick, all got about a third of the vote each, making it unclear to party membership where MPs’ support truly lies.
As I stood down at the General Election, this is the first contest since 2001 in which I have participated as an ordinary party member. Not having my ear bent in every corridor is certainly both a relief and a reminder that I am no longer in Parliament. However, as I have written elsewhere, I hugely enjoyed my 23 years in the Commons and would strongly encourage anyone with an interest in politics to put themselves forward. If you don’t, you’ll never know how far you might go – as both Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick are about to find out.
John Baron is the former Conservative MP for Basildon and Billericay and a former Shadow Health Minister.
