In 2019, Conservative Party members were asked to vote for a new leader following the resignation of Theresa May. He had resigned because he failed to approve his Brexit deal three times, so his position became untenable. He did his best, however, as it was a policy he campaigned to remain in the European Union, trying to get a Brexit deal in Parliament would always be in high demand.
But why was Mrs. May, who supported Remain, selected as prime minister in the first place, and who put her there? Among the Conservative parliamentary party, the same crowd that tells us today that we need a new leader and that Boris Johnson must leave.
Following the resignation of any Conservative Party leader, the process of selecting a replacement includes MPs in a secret ballot, fighting among themselves for their various favorite candidates. Finally, the last two candidates enter a second round in which Conservative members select a winner. This is what happened between Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt in 2019, when Boris won about 64 percent of the vote, a clear absolute winner, and members chose to lead.
However, three years later, the parliamentary party evaded the votes of the deputies by constructively changing the leader. In my opinion, this means that they have colluded with each other to get rid of Boris Johnson without consulting anyone else. Boris’s term – not only to win the leadership election but also a majority of eighty seats (not to mention the Brexit referendum) – has been completely ignored by a small number of MPs. This is undemocratic and unacceptable to members of the Conservative party. It has made them very angry. Including me!
That’s why I decided to act and co-sponsored a campaign to add Boris Johnson to a separate vote before the second round for the new party leader. It would be a simple yes / no vote by Conservative members on whether to accept Boris Johnson’s resignation. If members accept his resignation, so be it, and then they will be able to decide who they want as the new leader in the coming weeks. But if members do not accept his resignation, he remains prime minister. Members will have said theirs and we can all move on.
The chairman of the 1922 committee, Sir Graham Brady, argues that having a Boris vote goes against the rules because a resigning leader cannot run in the next leadership campaign. But this is false because members are not asking Boris to run for the leadership campaign, we want a vote on whether members should accept his resignation. Moreover, this is not a matter for the 1922 committee. It is a matter for the Conservative Party Board and, in accordance with Article 17 of its constitution, the board is free to do whatever is best. interest of the Conservative Party and its members. Sir Graham Brady as a board member should know this.
We must not underestimate the great outrage of members, who send thousands of emails to the president of the Conservative party to demand a vote for Boris. It cannot be in the best interest of the party to ignore its members and invalidate their previous votes. If I were Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak, I would see leadership at this stage as a poisoned chalice, a Pyrrhic victory that could provoke anger and division within the Conservative party and leave us in the political wilderness for a generation.
And all because, finally, Boris Johnson was dismissed by about 50 deputies who, through a series of resignations of herd mentality, were able to overthrow our prime minister in a time of crisis, despite his record of winning millions of votes and without formal formalization. approval of party members. What a shower.
Lord Cruddas is a former treasurer of the Conservative Party