The Tories are holding an ugly pageant for their next leader

BY Martin Ivens

After its worst electoral drubbing in history, the Conservative Party is staging a so-called beauty contest, with nominations for the party leadership election set to close on Monday. The ugly truth, however, is that the Tories are seen as more “untrustworthy, extreme, weak, incompetent and out of touch” than their Labour opponents, as an opinion poll conducted by the center-right think-tank Onward reveals.

Donations are drying up, staff at Tory Party headquarters are heading for the exit and caretaker leader Rishi Sunak has no appetite for a bare-knuckle fight with his Labour replacement, Keir Starmer, the new prime minister. The grey-suited men on the Conservative board are panicking about the decision to delay electing a leader until Nov. 2; the traditional party of the rich is down to its last £3 million ($3.9 million).

Even when the Tories finally make their choice, the new leader’s election will likely be overshadowed by America’s more fateful choice of a president three days later. Yet after their last four leaders all crashed and burned spectacularly, most Conservative MPs prefer to wait than rush to judgement.

One senior Conservative backbencher speaks for many, telling me “I have no intention of going anywhere near the party in the next five weeks at the very least.” After 14 turbulent years in power, his colleagues believe the voters won’t give the party a hearing anytime soon. Everyone dreads what former Home Secretary and leadership contender James Cleverly calls another round of “infighting, navel-gazing and internecine maneuverings.”

The rich and powerful who perennially thirst for honors and access to power will soon be filling the party’s coffers again if ordinary members — they get to decide between two candidates once the list gets whittled down by Tory members of Parliament — back a credible winner.

The pessimists, however, anticipate that Labour will be in government for at least two five-year terms under Starmer, with the Tory parliamentary group reduced to a bickering rump on the sidelines of real politics after losing more than 250 seats at the last election and seeing almost half its vote share vanish like smoke. If so, the next leader’s tenure could in any case be short — failure is ruthlessly punished. Former leadership contenders who lost their seats at the last election, such as Penny Mordaunt and Grant Shapps, will aim to return to the House of Commons in future by-elections for another go. And never say never to another Boris Johnson comeback.

The optimists console themselves that Labour’s massive majority is the result of a loveless landslide based on a mere 35 per cent vote share of a historically low 59 per cent turnout. The voters have never been more fickle: They could just as easily swing back to the Tories again. It is telling that only three years ago Starmer was on the brink of resigning as Labour leader after suffering a humiliating by-election defeat. If low-wattage Starmer could go on to win big, why not a charismatic Tory leader?

Conservative MPs therefore rightly want to test the candidates’ mettle for a decent period of time. As former ministers, all the contenders are in some way implicated in their party’s defeat — the guilty need to show they’ve learned the lessons of their electoral humiliation. In office, many of them overpromised and underdelivered.

The Conservatives are a protean party of power, by turns pragmatic or ideological, sometimes a combination of both. But by what political compass should they be guided now? Competence certainly is a minimum requirement. Labour came to power partly because the Tories presided over a broken Britain of failing public services, inadequate infrastructure, low housing starts and extraordinary levels of immigration. Starmer promises to do better; if the new government fails, the opposition must present a credible alternative.

Cleverly warns against the party becoming a “cult” in thrall to ideological think tanks. That suits his profile as an affable, unity candidate without intellectual pretensions. Mel Stride, the former work and pensions secretary, is both quietly affable and competent. Robert Jenrick, a lean and hungry former home office minister who broke to the right over immigration, is a favorite with activists. Tom Tugendhat, the former security minister who once served as an army officer, has steel - he is persona non grata with Russia, China and Iran - and, according to polling by Savanta, is the most popular contender for the leadership among both the public and Tory voters.

Kemi Badenoch, a former business and trade secretary, and Priti Patel, a former home secretary, appear to be more ideological in outlook than their rivals. Badenoch has star qualities and intellect, but doesn’t suffer fools gladly. Patel is popular with euroskeptic colleagues and is associated with Johnson. A third potential leader, Suella Braverman, yet another former home secretary (the department responsible for migration lies under a curse) has lost support by appearing to be a stalking horse for Donald Trump’s pal, Nigel Farage, leader of the populist Reform party.

The best approach would ally pragmatism with some ideological rigor. Toward the end of Tony Blair’s ascendancy, David Cameron won the Tory leadership by making his peace with Labour’s social liberalism and environmental concerns, but he also promised to restore fiscal orthodoxy. Cameron won right-wing votes by pledging to cut links with sister parties in the European Union. Tugendhat, a former Remainer, likewise has declared he is willing to pull the UK out of the European Convention on Human Rights, despite his earlier opposition to such a move.

All these maneuverings, however, will be of no more than academic interest if Starmer and Labour make good on their promises. The new government says it will deliver faster economic growth than other Group of Seven countries over the lifetime of this Parliament. If so, the next Tory leader will probably be toast. Such are the joys of opposition.