The Daily Telegraph - Saturday
At ease A member of France’s Garde Républicaine tries on a Scots Guards bearskin cap after rehearsing the Changing of the Guard in London. On Monday, France will become the first non-Commonwealth country to take part in the royal ceremony. ‘CCHQ only ca
Prospective candidates say Tory selection process is freezing out traditionalists and Brexit supporters
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
WHEN Gary Pound* made his way to the basement of Conservative Campaign Headquarters for his candidate selection interview, he was preparing himself for questions about law and order, immigration and taxation.
He need not have bothered. During a one-hour interrogation in a glasswalled box, the primary focus was on diversity, not politics.
Mr Pound had once been considered such an outstanding candidate that he was on a priority list, making him eligible to apply for any vacant constituency. This time, though, he did not make it onto the list at all.
“They were just obsessed with diversity,” said Mr Pound, a successful businessman who has been a committed and active member of the Conservative Party since university. “They wanted to know what I had done to promote diversity within the Party and within politics generally.
“Most Conservatives are meritocrats so they just want the best people, regardless of their sex or ethnicity, but it’s clear they are no longer picking people on merit.
“It also seemed clear that if you voted for Brexit, like me, your card was marked.
“It seems the party is being purged of true believers in Conservative values, and the people that should be Liberal Democrats who have infiltrated the party are taking over.”
MPs and party insiders have expressed deep misgivings about the candidate selection process, which has long-term implications for the Tory Party and the direction it is taking.
The growing row over who will stand in the next election is regarded by some as a symptom of how dysfunctional the Conservative Party has become as different factions wrestle for control over its uncertain future.
Even if Rishi Sunak loses the election and quits as Tory leader, he can determine what sort of party his successor inherits by controlling the list of potential parliamentary candidates.
Constituency associations have the final say over who stands as their candidate, usually choosing from a short-list of three or four, but CCHQ can block Right-wing candidates so that only One Nation Conservatives, as the centrists call themselves, are put forward.
The CCHQ gatekeepers include Gareth Fox, chief of staff to the chairman of the candidates committee, a Remainer who was tasked by David Cameron with making the party more diverse, and Baroness Jenkin of Kennington, who co-founded Women2Win with Theresa May almost 20 years ago aiming to increase female Tory MPs.
Other influential figures include Matt Wright, chairman of the candidates committee, Matt Lane, director of candidates, and long-term No 10 fixer Dougie Smith, who helps to vet candidates and acts as a liaison between Downing Street and the candidates committee.
Would-be MPs must submit a written application, which is followed by due diligence checks and then an interview in front of a Parliamentary Assessment Board, usually comprising two people, one of whom may be a sitting MP.
Those who pass are entered onto the approved list of candidates, which is subdivided into those on the comprehensive list, who can apply for any seat that comes up; the key list, who can usually only apply for the seat where they live, and the development list, which means they will be considered for unwinnable seats where they can gain experience of campaigning.
So far, 63 Tory MPs have announced they will step down at the election, meaning candidates are being selected to stand in their constituencies.
People who apply are considered by the candidates committee, which produces a long list and then works with the local association to whittle the list down to a shortlist of three or four in a process known as sifting.
Aman Bhogal, a 39-year-old former diplomat and founder of the Global Britain Centre, which campaigns for free trade and free enterprise post-Brexit, also believes he has been snubbed because of his Brexiteer credentials.
He said: “I joined the party when I was at school and I have spent about 14,000 hours campaigning by knocking on doors, distributing leaflets and so on.
“In the past when I have been interviewed by a Parliamentary Assessment Board I have been asked about my Conservative ideals, but now it’s all about diversity. You are asked how you would promote inter-racial harmony and the answer they’re looking for is that you would take the knee with Black Lives Matter.
“It’s rotten and it’s shoddy. Along with a lot of other people I am thinking of switching to Reform.”
Mr Bhogal said that after trying and failing to get onto the shortlist for 15 dif
What’s that, you can’t stand Jeremy Hunt? Tough.
True blues aren’t allowed anywhere near a members’ vote, just in case the silly old Conservatives make the “wrong” decision.
One reader has told me he has the enthusiastic support of his local association, but CCHQ has blocked him from the approved candidates list. There are words for this, and none of them is democracy.
Once the trounced Sunak has departed for California, the centrists MPs who, if things go according to plan, will dominate what is left of the parliamentary party, will block any leadership candidates on the Right. Even though they are the ones who will take us out of the ECHR and slash legal immigration – the policies most Conservatives, indeed most people, in Britain want.
How arrogant, how repellently devious and condescendingly de haut-en-bas. What a final kick in the teeth for Tories who have donated money and time to advance a cause that is precious to them, but nothing more than a vehicle to power for the believenothing, Nick Clegg tribute band.
As for Lord Frost, I can hardly express the depths of my disgust at CCHQ’s alleged treatment of him. There is a reason why Conservative gatherings around the country are packed when David Frost is the guest. He speaks for millions of us who feel politically ‘It’s clear the Tories are no longer picking people on merit’ ferent constituencies, he met Mr Fox and Mr Lane to ask them what he was doing wrong.
He said: “I was told my application was perfect and what they call my political footprint was spot on, but that I wasn’t getting people to call in and support me.
“They said, ‘who do you know in the Cabinet?’ and told me to get Cabinet ministers to call association chairmen putting me forward. I walked out very saddened.”
Mr Bhogal believes he has been blocked because he campaigned for Brexit and backed Liz Truss for the Tory leadership.
He said: “Bear in mind that twothirds of the party members voted for Liz Truss to be leader, so if they are alienating all of those people that’s not creating a unified party at all.”
The process of sifting candidates can be short-circuited by CCHQ in the case of a by-election when a candidate needs to be chosen quickly. In those circumstances, CCHQ can impose a shortlist on an association, which might contain only one truly viable candidate, meaning the system can be gamed.
One person on the approved list of candidates claimed some MPs who have already decided to stand down are being told to wait until the election is called before announcing their retirement so CCHQ can use the by-election rules to impose its own candidates on local associations. homeless. In his weekly column in this newspaper, more in sadness than in anger, David has patiently tried to give Downing Street constructive advice on how to avoid driving the party off a cliff. He cares about the future of his party, and his country. Nonetheless, it seems he has been banned from putting himself forward as a candidate by unelected Sunak apparatchiks who exercise vast influence over the composition of the parliamentary party. The same geniuses who picked the online-dating flasher William Wragg.
Given a choice between Lord Frost and Davina Dripping-Wett, who are disillusioned Tories more likely to turn out to vote for? But they won’t be given that choice. Because internal party victory is more important than trying to win the great ideological struggle.
Remember this: “The process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies in search of something in which no one believes, but to which no one objects; the process of avoiding the very issues that have to be solved, merely because you cannot get agreement on the way ahead. What great cause would have been fought and won under the banner: ‘I stand for consensus?”
Now, was a prime minister. If the yellow Tories reckon they can get away with banning true-blue Maggies from standing as Conservatives, they better think again. We see your game. And we are going to take her party back.
‘Internal party victory is more important than trying to win the great ideological struggle’