The leadership race has begun
THERESA May’s decision to set an end date for her premiership has turned the race to succeed her from a marathon into a sprint. Cabinet ministers and leading backbench hopefuls expect the Prime Minister to have left Downing Street well within a year. Westminster’s Christmas recess has become the time for some serious campaign planning for a leadership contest expected to be just a few months away.
Mrs May’s promise to stand down before the next general election – due in 2022 – made in her desperate bid to win over wavering Tory MPs ahead of last Wednesday’s confidence vote, is being interpreted by many colleagues as an indication she will quit soon after the country’s scheduled departure from the EU in just over 100 days.
If Brexit goes ahead on time, she will come under immediate pressure to name her own exit date. Many ministers and MPs will want the issue resolved long before the autumn conference season to avoid open feuding at the gathering in Manchester.
Tory critics of the Prime Minister believe the negative verdicts of more than a third of the party’s MPs in the confidence vote has destroyed what was left of her authority. One veteran of David Cameron’s administration told me this week that the former prime minister had expected his enemies to spring a confidence vote in his leadership if he had won the 2016 EU referendum and stayed in office. “The team war-gamed what would happen if a confidence vote was held. He decided he would have to quit if the number of MPs voting against him reached 60,” the source said, adding: “May had 117 vote against her. That makes her position untenable.”
Mrs May’s allies were taken aback by the size of the rebellion against her. Some had been taking a “bring it on” attitude towards the speculation about a confidence vote for months, hopeful that victory would buy her time because party rules prevent a repeat of the poll for at least a year.
They discovered on Wednesday that the vote shortened her expected tenure in Downing Street. Yet this Prime Minister has set new standards for being able to cling on after unprecedented setbacks. In the past fortnight, she has become the first holder of her office to lead a government held in contempt by the Com- mons and the first Conservative premier to face a confidence vote among her party’s MPs. Once again, she defied the forecasts of her critics by staving off the day of reckoning.
RIVALS lining up for the expected leadership – including Boris Johnson, Dominic Raab, Sajid Javid, Amber Rudd and Esther McVey – are already trying to calculate the numbers in a system that traditionally favours the outsider with the fewest enemies. “The camps are already canvassing for support,” said one Tory MP.
Brexiteers are discussing how to find a single candidate to rally behind. “We really have to get our act together this time,” said one source on the Eurosceptic wing of the party. “We cannot afford to let personality clashes stop a genuine Brexit candidate getting through to the final round and another Remainer getting in.”
Finding a unity candidate may prove problematic. The disorganisation of the Prime Minister’s foes has been one of the key factors in her survival so far. Whether the wellmarshalled operation behind the substantial “no” vote in the confidence ballot can be held together in the long term remains to be seen.
Even if the withdrawal from the EU takes place on schedule, the poisonous divisions opened up by the Brexit process will dominate the next contest for the Tory crown. That will no more settle the European issue in the party than the 2016 EU referendum did.
Potential candidates may need to ponder if there will be a Tory party left to lead after the contest is over. MICHAEL Gove has proved that dealing with Brexit is not the only duty facing ministers at the moment. The Environment Secretary judged a fancy dress competition including contestants dressed as a crocodile and dancing monkey at his Whitehall department on Thursday.
JACOB Rees-Mogg has revealed why he never gives anonymous briefings to Westminster journalists. “The trouble is, when I go off-the-record it is so obviously my phraseology,” the Tory backbencher said. POLITICS nerds are celebrating news that Erskine May, the 1,097-page handbook of parliamentary procedure that costs more than £300, is to be available for free on the internet from next year. But Commons Speaker John Bercow was a bit dismissive when Cabinet minister Andrea Leadsom announced the move to MPs. “I agreed to it, in consultation with Clerks, several months ago,” Mr Bercow said, adding: “It is very good that it is happening but there is absolutely nothing new about the fact of it.”