This afternoon’s resignation of Liz Truss, after setting the record for the shortest term for a PM of 44 days, has triggered another leadership contest for leader of the Conservative Party.
Since 7 July the UK has had a longer period (51 days) without a prime minister than one with it. In that time there has been three chancellors – Nadhim Zahawi, Kwasi Kwarteng and Jeremy Hunt. There have also been three home secretaries: Priti Patel, Suella Braverman and Grant Shapps.
Among the leading potential candidates currently being mentioned for the top role are Penny Mordaunt, Rishi Sunak, Boris Johnson, Kemi Badenoch and Ben Wallace, although at the time of writing none have officially confirmed they are standing.
Boris Johnson’s candidature would be complicated by the former prime minister having to face the Commons privileges committee over accusations he deliberately lied to MPs about breaches of Covid rules at No 10 Downing Street. However, early indications are that he would be the preferred choice of Tory members, if not the party’s MPs.
The next prime minister is set to be installed by 28 October. A general election has not been considered by the Conservative party despite its internal difficulties, and a lack of business and market confidence in the current leadership.
On Thursday evening Graham Brady, chair of the influential 1922 committee, said that candidates would need to have the backing of at least 100 Tory MPs by Monday. If there’s more than one candidate on Monday, the contest will be opened up to the party’s membership in an online vote.
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In the last contest Rishi Sunak received 137 votes in the final round, Liz Truss got 113, and Penny Mordaunt got 105.
Media commentators such as Robert Peston have reported that there is concern that rapid electronic voting by Tory members for their new leader could bring a risk of an overseas bad actor, such as Russia, hacking the poll and having a say over who becomes Britain’s new prime minister.
Keir Starmer, leader of the Labour party, called for an immediate general election. He said: “The Tories cannot respond to their latest shambles by yet again simply clicking their fingers and shuffling the people at the top without the consent of the British people. They do not have a mandate to put the country through yet another experiment; Britain is not their personal fiefdom to run how they wish.”
France’s President Emmanuel Macron said he wished the UK “a rapid return to stability”, a sentiment that presumably UK businesses would share.
Truss left office without at any stage contacting the leaders of the UK’s devolved nations, Nicola Sturgeon in Scotland and Mark Drakeford in Wales.
Tony Danker, CBI director-general, said the political situation was damaging the UK economy: “The politics of recent weeks have undermined the confidence of people, businesses, markets and global investors in Britain. That must now come to an end if we are to avoid yet more harm to households and firms.
“Stability is key. The next prime minister will need to act to restore confidence from day one.
“They will need to deliver a credible fiscal plan for the medium term as soon as possible, and a plan for the long-term growth of our economy.”
Kitty Ussher, chief economist at the Institute of Directors, echoed his comments. She said: “Confidence in the UK economy – that was already running at very low levels according to our data – is being hit further as a direct result of political instability in the UK government. This reduces investment, thereby constraining growth. Without stability and confidence, growth is impossible.”
Some have commented on the inadequacy of the system used to elect leaders of the Conservative party. Professor John Bryson, chair in enterprise and economic geography at the University of Birmingham, told Personnel Today that the UK needed political parties to adopt a common approach to the appointment of leaders: “Any country which has an overtly dominant political party – a party that is always in office – is a troubled state. Such states have unhappy futures as there is too often a significant narrowing of political philosophies that reflect the interests of the very few. However, the key issue is that a government special committee needs to be assembled to agree a common approach and framework that would apply to the election of any leader of a UK political party.
“The current system is based on one approach that has been formulated by the Conservative Party and other approaches by, for example, the Labour Party, Liberal Democrats, and Scottish National Party. These procedural differences matter and reflect a fundamental distortion that sits at the heart of the UK democratic process.
“Now is the time to remove this distortion and come to a common agreement regarding the processes that are applied to elect the leaders of all our political parties. We need a common approach that is fair and transparent.”
This article was updated on Thursday evening 20 October after the voting procedure for the new Conservative leader was announced
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