Following the resignation of Liz Truss earlier this morning, details of the process to elect the next Conservative party leader and prime minister, have this afternoon been unveiled.
These rules would appear to go a long way in deciding who is likely to become the UK’s next prime minister.
On the face of it, the contest would now appear to be Rishi Sunak’s to lose, but there are 4 crucial junctions en route.
Junction 1 – Will anyone apart from Rishi Sunak secure the 100 nominations?
Under the party’s plans for next week’s leadership election, candidates have to submit their nominations by 2pm on Monday. To be eligible for the ballot, candidates require 100 nominations, either collected by signature or email.
This threshold of 100 nominations should prove obtainable for Rishi Suank who secured the backing of 137 MPs in July’s contest. It is likely that many of those MPs will remain true to him.
At the same time, the 100 nomination mark is likely to prove problematic for former prime minister, Boris Johnson. This looks very much deliberate. Should Mr Johnson make the party members ballot, all polls indicate that he remains the likely winner.
Although Mr Johnson retains a vocal and die-hard supporter base at Westminster, this is thought to be in the several dozen. This low-ish number was visibly reflected in the scarce showing of colleagues who turned up in Downing Street to support him on the day of his resignation speech. Of course, 211 MPs did still back Mr Johnson in June’s no confidence vote, but that was before the events in late June and early July that led to his eventual downfall. Whilst he may be able to get a large part of the way, the bar of 100 MPs still feels just a litte too high for Mr Johnson.
This 100 vote threshold is also going to be a serious hurdle for any outsider wishing to enter the contest. For the likes of Suella Braverman, Tom Tugendhat or Brandon Lewis, the opportunity is not going to be there this time to start small, and grow through a series of ballots.
As such, attention now turns to whether either of the two other favourites, Penny Mordaunt or Kemi Badenoch, can actually achieve the 100 nominations they need.
In the final MPs vote in July, Penny Mordaunt narrowly surpassed the 100 vote mark, securing the support of 105 of her colleagues in the third round of voting.
In the fourth round in the summer, Kemi Badenoch secured 59 votes, but it is thought that in next week’s contest she may benefit from securing the support of many of the 113 MPs who backed Liz Truss.
The question is now will any run from Mr Johnson take too many MP nominations away from Ms Mordaunt or Ms Badenoch, or more potently, what happens at the last minute, if it becomes evident that Mr Johnson lacks the numbers to mount a run. Cue a last minute dash of Boris supporting ‘anti Sunak’ MPs throwing their lot in with one of these two candidates.
Should none of the other candidates secure the 100 MP mark, then Mr Sunak would in effect become the UKs next prime minister by 2pm on Monday.
Junction 2 – If Rishi Sunak, and just one other candidate, make it to the MPs ballot, is he able to pull far enough ahead?
Once nominations have closed, and when the field has been reduced to just two candidates, Conservative MPs will then vote, but only to give an indicative indication as to which candidate they prefer.
At this point, should one candidate emerge far ahead in the MPs vote (say 240 votes to 117 votes), the pressure on the second candidate to withdraw rather than put themselves to a vote of party members will be immense.
In light of the recent experience with Liz Truss, it will be argued that it is imperative that the next Conservative leader can count on the broad support of the parliamentary party.
Although Mr Sunak is not guaranteed to win the MPs vote, his support levels from the summer, mean that he is unlikely to lose it by much.
The question is thus how far, if at all, can he pull ahead.
Moreover, if he can pull ahead, and the second candidate doesnt’ withdraw, then Rishi Sunak will have invaluable momentum going into the full vote of party members.
Junction 3 – If both Ms Badenoch and Ms Mordaunt make it to the ballot, which is then eliminated?
In the possible circumstances (given there are only 357 eligible Conservative MPs), that Mr Sunak, Ms Badenoch and Ms Mordaunt all make it to Monday’s ballot, Conservative MPs will then vote to reduce the number of candidates to two.
This would be the worst scenario for Mr Sunak.
Although he would be still the favourite to make it to the final two of voting, it would suggest that he lacks the MP numbers that he needs to secure a dominant victory as outlined in Junction 2.
Momentum would at this stage, be gained by his opponent.
Junction 4 – Will enough Conservative members repent from their summer opposition to Mr Sunak
Should the contest reach the Conservative party membership, something which remains far from guaranteed given Junctions 1 and 2, the party members will then partake in a secure online vote next week.
The winner of the party members vote will then become the UK’s next prime minister on Friday.
An opinion poll from the group JL Partners suggested that should a re-run of the summer’s leadership contest have occured earlier this week, then Mr Sunak would have emerged victorious by 43% to 28%.
In the light of events, this suggests that some party members may be coming round to Mr Sunak.
However next week, Liz Truss will not be on the ballot paper.
If Mr Sunak retains his support level from the summer, something that would seem likely given the divisiveness of subsequent events, he will then need to persuade 1 in 8 of those conservative party members who didn’t back him in the summer to have a change of heart.
Where he was very visible in the first two days of Liz Truss’ premiership, popping up repeatedly in both Westminster Hall and the Commons chamber, Mr Sunak has barely been seen since.
Rather than reminding people that ‘I told you so’, this has been smart politics. Accordingly 1 in 8 of those who supported Ms Truss in the summer, may be an obtainable pool voters, for Mr Sunak to persaude.
As he campaigned vigorously all the way to the finishing line, the scale of Mr Sunak’s defeat in the summer now looks significant. Remember, he ended the contest, losing by a far smaller margin of votes than was previously expected.
On the above basis, next week’s leadership contest still appears Mr Sunak’s to lose, but there will be some crucial junctions, and no doubt some more twists, along the way.
