Pro-Brexit Tories Move to Prevent Leadership Contest ‘Stitch-Up’
Pro-Brexit Tories Move to Prevent Leadership Contest ‘Stitch-Up’
(Bloomberg) -- Pro-Brexit Conservative members of Parliament will hold their own hustings and votes on the party’s leadership candidates to try to ensure their choice makes it to the final pair grassroots members will choose from.
Bill Wiggin, who chairs the so-called 92 Group of 160 Conservative MPs has written to around 20 potential leadership candidates asking them to make a speech and take questions at a meeting in Parliament on June 10. The group -- named for the house in west London where members used to meet in the 1960s -- will then hold a secret ballot to determine the most popular candidate. Many of the caucus are pushing for a hard split from the European Union.
The group “represents half the parliamentary party, and we want to see a truly Conservative leader,” Wiggin said in an interview. “We need to leave the EU and cannot afford to wait. Those leadership candidates who do not accept a clean global exit from the EU will not be getting our support.”
Jacob Rees-Mogg is among the allies of the current favorite to win the leadership contest, Boris Johnson, to have voiced concerns that MPs to the left of the party -- many of whom want to stay in the EU or keep close ties to the bloc -- will vote tactically to prevent him reaching the final pairing.
Their concern reflects the curious nature of Tory leadership contests, in which the front-runners often don’t win. During the initial campaign scheduled to run until the end of June, MPs whittle down the candidates to a final pairing over a series of votes to remove the least popular. They will then be put to a ballot of members, and the party aims to announce a new leader by the end of July.
A crowded field makes it harder for candidates to build momentum, as well as making it more difficult for supporter groups to vote tactically, according to Tim Bale, a professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London.
“Once the ballot is underway MPs will be changing who they vote for as candidates are knocked out, and it’s very hard to coordinate behind any one candidate until the later rounds,” he said.
The 92 Group is one of many Tory factions in the ruling party, all with differing views on how to implement Brexit. Surveys of the party’s 160,000 members show leaving the EU is their top policy priority.
To contact the reporter on this story: Kitty Donaldson in London at kdonaldson1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Tim Ross at tross54@bloomberg.net, Stuart Biggs, Alex Morales
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