‘Rishi did better than expected’
DEMOGRAPHIC PROFILE OF PARTY MEMBERS PLAYED A KEY ROLE IN TRUSS BEING ELECTED TORY LEADER
CONSERVATIVE party members know in their heart of hearts that Rishi Sunak was by far the better candidate, yet they chose Liz Truss.
What does that say about the party? It’s possible more British Indians will vote Labour at the next general election.
There was a sense of drama in the Queen Elizabeth II conference centre in Westminster, just round the corner from No 10, Downing Street, as the chairman of the Tory 1922 back bench committee announced the result at 12.35pm on Monday (5).
“I, Sir Graham Brady, returning officer for the Conservative and Unionist party leadership election, declare that the total number of eligible voters was 172,437. The turnout in the election was 82.6 per cent. The total number of votes rejected was 654. The total number of valid votes given to each candidate was as follows: Rishi Sunak 60,399, Liz Truss 81,326. Therefore, I give notice that Liz Truss is elected as the leader of the Conservative and Unionist party.”
The immediate reaction from Chris Mason, the BBC’s political editor, was: “For Liz Truss, this is the crowning moment of her career. But what beckons now is the in-tray from hell. The question for her party, and the country, is whether she is up to it.”
The BBC immediately pointed out that her margin of victory – 57.4 per cent – to Rishi’s 42.6 per cent was a clear win, but not the landslide the foreign secretary’s supporters had predicted.
Given the former chancellor was the choice of Tory MPs and Truss was picked by Conservative party members means she may have trouble uniting the parliamentary party.
For comparison, Boris Johnson won 66.4 per cent of the vote in 2019, David Cameron 67.6 per cent in 2005 and Iain Duncan Smith 60.7 per cent in 2001.
Truss’s husband, Hugh O’Leary, sat by her side. Rishi’s wife, Akshata Murty, was missing – a clear sign that he knew he had lost.
I am sure Rishi will try not to be a bad loser as he heads towards the back benches. After the result was announced, he tweeted: “Thank you to everyone who voted for me in this campaign. I’ve said throughout that the Conservatives are one family.
It’s right we now unite behind the new PM, Liz Truss, as she steers the country through difficult times.”
Rishi was up against it from the start, rather like a cricketer who goes out to bat with both legs strapped together.
It is fair to say Truss triumphed because she had the support of former members of UKIP (United Kingdom Independence Party) and the Brexit Party, both of which were once led by Nigel Farage, who forced the then prime minister Cameron to hold a referendum on whether Britain should remain within the European Union.
This is the opinion of Chris Curtis, head of political polling at Opinium and a neutral observer. He revealed that the party membership became dominated by Leave voters before the last general election.
He said: “In the run-up to Boris Johnson becoming leader, lots of people who were ex-UKIP and Brexit Party supporters switched over and joined the Conservatives, so I think the membership is more right-wing now as a consequence of that.
“The big thing we know about Conservative party members, in comparison to voters as a whole, is that they are much more rightwing on economics, and that’s clearly part of what the Liz Truss appeal is. Part of that, of course, is that many of them are high-income earners who would benefit from such a thing (a cut in income tax), or small business owners who will benefit from a corporation tax cut.”
Research by the Queen Mary University in London has established that almost three-quarters – 71 per cent – of the membership are male, compared with half, 51 per cent, of the population.
More than 60 per cent of members are over 55, compared with 26 per cent of the population. Just over three-quarters, 76 per cent, of members are Leave voters, whereas just over half, 52 per cent, of the population supported Brexit.
And this is a significant finding – 97 per cent of members are classified as white British or white Other, compared with 87 per cent of the population.
It would have required a revolution for them to go against advice from the Daily Telegraph, the Daily Mail, the Daily Express and the Sun to vote for Truss.
With only five per cent of the Conservative membership being between 18 and 24, Rishi’s appeal to older voters not to pass the credit card bill to future generations fell on deaf years.
“If you don’t win, what will you do next?” was the question Rishi was asked last Sunday morning by the BBC’s former political editor, Laura Kuenssberg, who has taken over from Andrew Marr in the flagship weekend politics programme.
Rishi replied: “Well, I’m going to stay as a member of parliament. And I was really delighted (to make that promise). Actually, I finished this campaign on Friday at home in Yorkshire with my own members, which was really lovely. And, you know, it’s been a great privilege to represent them as a member of parliament for Richmond in North Yorkshire. I’d love to keep doing that as long as they’ll have me.”
His adversaries claim that Rishi’s references during the leadership campaign to California, where he had once lived with his wife, and where they had green cards, means he will head back to a lucrative life in Silicon Valley once he is defeated. Rishi responded: “That is the kind of culture that I experienced when I was living in California. I mean, you heard me talk about my experience in California.”
Kuenssberg cut in: “Now, we might be teasing a little bit. But there’s a lot of chatter in Westminster that actually what you would like to do would be to go back to America, where you had a very successful career. You talked a lot about your experience of California. Will you commit today to staying and standing in the next general election?”
He replied: “I literally just said I was with my own party. Because you make the point about California, yes, I have lived and worked in California. And I actually think it’s one of the reasons that I would be good at this job. Because what I will bring to this job is a way of thinking that is different.
“And when we think about growth – and in a modern economy, how do you drive growth? You drive it through innovation. Because of my experience, I know how to build that type of economy, and it will benefit (everyone), yes.”
The accusation of “back stabber” followed him throughout the campaign, because Boris felt that it was Rishi’s resignation as chancellor on July 5 that encouraged nearly 60 other ministers to follow him in stepping down and seal his fate as prime minister. So bitter was Boris that he effectively launched an “anyone but Rishi” movement.
Kuenssberg asked: “If you don’t win this time, would you ever run again?”
Rishi, who is only 42, didn’t quite answer the question. “Oh, gosh. We just finished this campaign, Laura. I need to recover from this one. But I look forward to supporting a Conservative government in whatever capacity. I think that my job now is to just support a Conservative government. That’s what I want to see,” he said. If Truss and the Tories are defeated by Labour’s Sir Keir Starmer in the 2024 general election, it is possible that Rishi will have another crack at the leadership. But for now, as he returns to the back benches, he will be reflecting on the old Tory cliché: “He who wields the knife never wears the crown”.