What Is Next for the Conservative Party?
“There’s only so many times you can turn the machine off and on again before you realise there is something fundamentally wrong.”
- the resignation that sparked the rest. Sajid Javid on 5th July.
The Conservatives, under Prime Minister Boris Johnson, were marred by cocaine-fuelled parties during the lockdown, affairs, and cronyism. However, it was a Downing Street lie that hammered the final nail in the coffin. A standard parliamentary lie in Johnson’s government had never been coup-worthy before, but in the case of sexual misconduct allegations against Deputy Chief Whip Chris Pincher, in charge of disciplining party members, a sitting parliament can only take so much scandal. In this case, it was ironically the whip who needed disciplining, accused of sexually assaulting two men at a private members club. Supposedly these allegations were well known to Johnson who declared the whip, “Pincher by name, Pincher by nature.”[2] Once the accusations came to light, Johnson was chastised for blaming Tory MPs present at the event for topping up Pincher’s glass. As Downing Street flip-flopped from saying Johnson was aware of Chris Pincher’s sexual misconduct to not before he was appointed Deputy Chief Whip, Tories grew not only irritated, but embarrassed. Boris was not as good at lying as he had been before, more so, fewer people were willing to lie for him. Tracks were half-heartedly covered as the Prime Minister and his friends were complacent with what they could get away with.
The 62 resignations that followed after Sajid Javid’s ferocious speech on July 5th broke records and was indicative of a party unified against the red-handed leader.[3] As the Tories planned to prise Boris’ fingers from the doors of Downing Street, there was little to suggest where the conservatives as a party planned to head next. Eleven members of the Conservative Party announced their decision to run for leader, many of whom announced their bid before Boris had even resigned. These candidates scatter-gunned eleven versions of a post-Brexit conservative party across the political spectrum and expected to split votes. The party was in the midst of an identity crisis and everything was to play for. Kemi Badenoch, Penny Mordaunt, and backbencher Tom Tugendhat were little-known but surprisingly successful contenders, though failed to make the final two.
In the end, the party narrowed down the race to former Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak and current Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, and as Minister for Women and Equalities, Liz Truss. Whoever succeeds Johnson will be announced in September. Sunak’s and Truss’ policies were by far the furthest from each other on the spectrum. Regardless of their policies, they were the two most obvious choices as they are the best-known candidates.
Both faced the challenge of establishing a clear economic policy to combat rising inflation and ease the bursting weight of high energy bills set to hit voters next winter. Rishi Sunak, Tory golden boy, was publicly warned against his left-leaning high tax policy by staunch Johnson supporter Jacob Rees-Mogg. Rees-Mogg like other Johnson supporters will presumably peddle for Liz Truss, who has drawn comparison to Margaret Thatcher for her low tax policy.[4] The most recent ballot shows that Truss holds 31.6% of the vote whilst Sunak leads with 38.3%—barely scraping enough votes for a dignified win.
Liz Truss’s staggering momentum has proved the race is anyone’s to win but this does not bode well for a reformed conservative party as most of her support is shared with Johnson’s base. If Truss wins, we will expect many of his supporters back in cabinet.
Similarly, if Sunak wins, he’ll have Truss’s grassroots conservatives breathing down his neck. It is unpromising that he would be able to achieve anything without their nod—unlikely, as they don’t like him very much. Sunak was one of the first to resign despite owing his meteoric rise to Johnson who promoted him to 11 Downing Street, residence of Chancellor of the Exchequer. It would be the Johnson loyalist view that without the PM giving Sunak the second biggest platform in British politics, he may not have made it this far. The loyalists would be right.
The past couple of weeks in British politics have been long and gruelling. Dramatic resignations implied change was imminent, though the conservative selection of Sunak and Truss has proved in fact, it is not. It is safe to say that in the end, Johnson’s era of flip-flopping and fraud wore out the MPs that voted him in, though not enough to ward the whole culture off the party. What we can expect from the conservative leadership to come is simply something less bad, less discernible, and less remarkably sensational.
Photo: The Nation
Works Cited:
Sajid Javid’s resignation speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzW-pfOiXz8
Sajid Javid’s resignation letter: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1088367/Letter_to_the_PM_001.pdf
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-62058278
https://www.economist.com/britain/2022/07/21/the-choice-between-rishi-sunak-and-liz-truss