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2024 Conservative Party leadership election

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2024 Conservative Party leadership election
← Oct 2022 4 September – 31 October 2024 (2024-09-04 – 2024-10-31)

Full results for all candidates below
 
Candidate Kemi Badenoch Robert Jenrick
Third MPs' ballot 30 (25.0%) 31 (25.8%)
Fourth MPs' ballot 42 (35.0%) 41 (34.2%)
Members' vote
 
Candidate James Cleverly Tom Tugendhat
Third MPs' ballot 39 (32.5%) 20 (16.7%)
Fourth MPs' ballot 37 (30.8%) Eliminated
Members' vote Eliminated Eliminated

Incumbent leader

Rishi Sunak



The 2024 Conservative Party leadership election was announced on 5 July 2024 when then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak declared his intention to resign as Conservative Party leader following the party's defeat at the 2024 general election. The leadership race commenced on 24 July and is expected to last for over three months, with Rishi Sunak's successor being confirmed on 2 November, when the result of the party membership vote is set to be announced. Sunak remains as acting leader until his successor is appointed.

Six candidates stood for the leadership: Kemi Badenoch, James Cleverly, Robert Jenrick, Priti Patel, Mel Stride and Tom Tugendhat. Four were eliminated in a series of votes, until two remained to stand in the final ballot, which Conservative Party members vote in. On 4 September, Patel was eliminated in the first round of voting, with Jenrick outperforming expectations by coming first. On 10 September, Stride was eliminated in the second round and went on to endorse Cleverly.

Following a strong performance at the Conservative Party Conference, Cleverly emerged as a frontrunner by coming first in the third round of voting, whilst Tugendhat was eliminated. Despite this, Cleverly was unexpectedly eliminated in a close fourth round of voting, leaving Badenoch and Jenrick to go head-to-head in a members' vote.

Background

[edit]

July 2022 leadership election and Liz Truss's premiership

[edit]

On 7 July 2022, Boris Johnson resigned as Conservative leader and Prime Minister after dozens of ministers resigned from his government following a slew of scandals and controversies, including Partygate, that marred the final few months of his premiership, culminating in the Chris Pincher scandal.[1] A leadership election was triggered to replace him, in which Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss were the final two candidates to be put forward to party members after a series of MPs' ballots. Truss won the contest, beating Sunak in the members' vote 57% to 43%.[2] She assumed leadership of the party on 5 September 2022, and became Prime Minister the following day.[3]

Truss' premiership would turn out to be the shortest of any Prime Minister in history, lasting just 49 days. Truss' tenure oversaw the death and state funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, which caused government business to be suspended during the 10-day national mourning period from 8–19 September. On 23 September 2022, in response to the cost-of-living crisis, Truss' Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng announced a 'mini-budget', which introduced large-scale tax cuts and borrowing. It caused the value of pound sterling to crash, sliding to an all-time low against the US dollar. The mini-budget was widely criticised and its policies were gradually reversed over the following three weeks. The Conservatives' opinion poll ratings also began to fall sharply in the weeks following the announcement, dipping to around 20% as they trailed Labour by over 30% in some polls.

Truss dismissed Kwarteng without explanation on 14 October 2022 and replaced him with Jeremy Hunt. By 17 October, pressure was beginning to mount on Truss' premiership and five Conservative MPs were calling for her resignation. On 19 October, Home Secretary Suella Braverman resigned after admitting to having used her personal email address to send a Cabinet document and her resignation letter was highly critical of Truss' government. Later that evening, a parliamentary vote on a debate to ban fracking — which was opposed by the government — descended into chaos over confusion whether it was being treated as a confidence vote in the government, compounded by speculation that the chief whip and deputy chief whip had resigned, and by allegations, later refuted, that some Conservative MPs had been manhandled in the division lobby. On 20 October, the following day, Truss announced she would resign as Prime Minister and Conservative leader shortly, triggering a second leadership election to find her replacement.[4]

October 2022 leadership election and Rishi Sunak's premiership

[edit]

The timetable for the October 2022 leadership election was much shorter than the July one. An expedited process was set out; candidates were required to obtain 100 nominations from fellow Conservative MPs before 2 pm on 24 October, and an MPs' ballot followed by a online members' ballot was to be held shortly thereafter if more than one candidate received more than 100 nominations. Only two candidates announced their intention to stand: Sunak and Penny Mordaunt. There was intensive speculation that Johnson would initiate a bid for a return to the top post; at one point he was expected to stand and even received 62 nominations from MPs, but he subsequently declined to enter the race.

As only Sunak met the required threshold among MPs, receiving 197 nominations to Mordaunt's 27, Mordaunt withdrew from the leadership race two minutes before nominations closed and Sunak was left the only candidate remaining, enabling him to win the contest and become Conservative leader without an MPs' ballot or members' vote. Sunak became Prime Minister the next day, on 25 October.[5][6]

In his first speech as Prime Minister, Sunak said that Truss "was not wrong" to want to improve growth and that he "admired her restlessness to create change", but admitted that "some mistakes were made", and that he was elected prime minister in part to fix them. He promised to "place economic stability and confidence at the heart of this government's agenda". In an almost immediate reversal of Truss' policy, Sunak reinstated the ban on fracking on 26 October 2022 as outlined in the 2019 Conservative manifesto.

Sunak was faced with the task of rebuilding the Conservatives' reputation which had been significantly damaged by the controversies and scandals of the previous year and the Truss ministry. While their poll ratings recovered slightly over the following months, it still wasn't enough to bring them back to pre-Truss levels. Sunak contested his first local elections as leader on 4 May 2023, where the Conservatives suffered heavy losses. Two months later, on 20 July 2023, they lost two seats in by-elections; one to Labour and one to the Liberal Democrats. Their fortunes remained unchanged throughout policy changes of the following year, such as the shelving of the HS2 northern phase in October. The Conservatives lost two further seats in by-elections on 15 February 2024.[7][8]

In March 2024, there were suggestions that Sunak could face a leadership challenge before the upcoming general election — which was expected within the calendar year — if the Conservatives perform poorly at the local elections on 2 May.[9][10][11] Sunak however said he would resist a challenge, even if that ends up being the case.[12][13] As predicted, 2 May saw grim showing for the Conservatives, who suffered their worst local election results since 1996. Additionally, they lost another seat to Labour in the Blackpool South by-election, and narrowly lost the West Midlands mayoral election in a knife-edge vote. Sunak's premiership was described as more stable than that of his two predecessors, while still not being able to represent a turnaround for the Conservatives.[14]

2024 general election

[edit]

On 22 May 2024, in a surprise announcement, Sunak called a general election for 4 July.[15]

Rishi Sunak giving his final speech as Prime Minister on 5 July 2024

Labour won the general election in a landslide, ending 14 years of Conservative government. Sunak conceded the election at 4:40 am on 5 July. The Conservatives experienced the largest defeat in its history, being reduced to 121 seats on a vote share of 23.7 per cent. It lost 244 seats, including those of twelve Cabinet ministers and that of former Prime Minister Truss.[16] It also lost all its seats in Wales.[17]

Subsequently, Sunak said in his final speech as Prime Minister that he would resign as leader of the party once a successor was elected.[18]

Campaign

[edit]

In early July, shortly after the general election, reports suggested that Danny Kruger and John Hayes, prominent MPs on the right of the party, were going to support the prospective leadership candidate Robert Jenrick. This was seen as an early setback for Suella Braverman, since both Kruger and Hayes previously campaigned for her bid to succeed Boris Johnson in July 2022.[19][20][21] The i reported that following Braverman's controversial speeches regarding the pride flag, multiple Conservative MPs believed she had lost her support among her colleagues and could defect to Reform UK.[22] Sources in both parties suggested Braverman was expected to defect, potentially following the Conservative leadership election if she doesn't win.[23] Braverman did not stand, but said she could have surpassed the ten MP threshold to do so.[24]

James Cleverly, Tom Tugendhat, Robert Jenrick, Mel Stride, Priti Patel and Kemi Badenoch were the confirmed candidates at the deadline of nominations on 29 July.[25] Tugendhat and Cleverly are pitching themselves as more moderate, centre-ground candidates, while Badenoch, Jenrick and Patel are competing for the vote of the party's right-wing, and Stride is seen as being between the two groupings.[25][26]

Bob Blackman, 1922 Committee chair, announced that he would give out formal warnings, or "yellow cards", if they briefed against their rivals.[27]

Ipsos reported that there was widespread apathy around the election, with 62% of people saying that they did not personally care who became the leader.[28]

Cleverly's elimination in the final MPs' ballot surprised many. It was speculated that some of Cleverly's supporters had voted for other candidates, presuming Cleverly would be safe, in order to pick an easier rival against him in the members' vote, i.e. a failure of tactical voting.[29][30][31]

Schedule

[edit]

The elected chair of the 1922 Committee, Bob Blackman, suggested prior to the election that the party must take its time in choosing a leader.[32] Following the election, he said that he expected Sunak would not be the leader by the Conservative Party Conference, which was held at the end of September.[33]

The 1922 Committee met to decide the schedule of the election on the 22 July. The leadership race is expected to last for a little over three months with Sunak's successor being confirmed on 2 November. The timetable of key dates is in the table below. Conservative Party Conference will act as a 'beauty parade' for the remaining candidates.[34][35]

In addition to the voting timetable below, the Conservatives "pay to play" rules required the final four candidates, as decided by Conservative MPs on 10 September, to pay £50,000 to CCHQ.

Following the last round of MPs voting, the final two candidates were required to pay another £150,000 to the central party headquarters.[36]

Timetable

[edit]
Key dates
Date Event
24–29 July Nomination period; potential candidates must gather the support of ten fellow Conservative MPs to qualify for the first MPs' ballot.[37]
4 and 10 September Conservative MPs vote in two ballots to reduce to four candidates.[35]
29 September –
2 October
The Conservative Party Conference takes place, where each of the four remaining leadership hopefuls give a speech.[35]
8 and 9 October Conservative MPs vote in two more ballots, where candidates are reduced to two finalists.[38]
10–31 October An online ballot of the final two candidates takes place for all Conservative party members.[35]
2 November The result of the ballot is announced, and the winner becomes the leader of the Conservative Party.[35]

Candidates

[edit]

In June 2024, during the campaign for the 2024 general election, The Guardian reported that leadership hopefuls were already lobbying for support from MP candidates for a potential upcoming leadership election, which was seen as likely given that opinion polls showed the Conservatives on course for a heavy defeat.[39] The Times also reported that both Penny Mordaunt and Kemi Badenoch registered website domains for a leadership campaign.[40] As Mordaunt lost her seat in the general election, her prospective campaign never came to fruition; the Conservative Party constitution states that the leader of the party must be a Member of Parliament.[41] Despite press speculation that former leader Boris Johnson might make another attempt to return to the position, this requirement likewise prevented him from doing so, as Johnson had not been an MP since June 2023.[42]

Candidates who declared

[edit]

The following candidates declared leadership campaigns.

Candidate Constituency Current office Former offices Campaign Ref.

Kemi Badenoch
MP for North West Essex (2024–present);
Saffron Walden (2017–2024)
Shadow Housing and Communities Secretary (2024–present) Business Secretary (2023–2024)
Minister for Women and Equalities (2022–2024)
International Trade Secretary (2022–2023)
Website

Announced:
28 July 2024
[43]

James Cleverly
MP for Braintree (2015–present) Shadow Home Secretary (2024–present) Home Secretary (2023–2024)
Foreign Secretary (2022–2023)
Education Secretary (2022)
Party Chair (2019–2020)
Website

Announced:
23 July 2024
Eliminated:
9 October 2024
[44][45]

Robert Jenrick
MP for Newark (2014–present) Backbencher Minister of State for Immigration (2022–2023)
Housing and Communities Secretary (2019–2021)
Website

Announced:
25 July 2024
[46]

Priti Patel
MP for Witham (2010–present) Backbencher Home Secretary (2019–2022)
International Development Secretary (2016–2017)
Website
Announced:
27 July 2024
Eliminated:
4 September 2024
[47][48]

Mel Stride
MP for Central Devon (2010–present) Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary (2024–present) Work and Pensions Secretary (2022–2024)
Chair of the Treasury Select Committee (2019–2022)
Leader of the House of Commons (2019)
Website
Announced:
26 July 2024
Eliminated:
10 September 2024
[49][50]

Tom Tugendhat
MP for Tonbridge (2024–present);
Tonbridge and Malling (2015–2024)
Shadow Minister for Security (2024–present) Minister of State for Security (2022–2024)
Chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee (2017–2022)
Website
Announced:
24 July 2024
Eliminated:
8 October 2024
[51][52]

Explored

[edit]

The following Conservative Party politicians explored a run but ultimately declined to stand or failed to receive the ten required nominations:

Potential candidates prior to the election

[edit]

The following figures lost their seats in the 2024 general election and are ineligible, but were discussed as potential candidates prior to electoral results.

Declined

[edit]

The following were suggested by commentators as potential candidates for the leadership but declined to stand:

Endorsements

[edit]

Opinion polling

[edit]

Conservative party members

[edit]
Multi-candidate polling
Head-to-head
Top candidates polling
Dates
conducted
Pollster Client Sample
size
Kemi
Badenoch
Suella
Braverman
Tom Tugendhat Robert Jenrick Priti Patel Don't know
16–19 July 2024 Techne[d] College Green Group 1,002 52% 45% 52% 55% 47% 30%
  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i The ConservativeHome Party Members' Survey is a self-selecting panel, not a demographically or geographically weighted poll. The panel is composed of over 3,300 members of the Conservative Party, who receive the survey by email.
  2. ^ a b c d Sample of party members who responded to a survey issued by the right-wing Popular Conservatism group. The survey did not use an independent polling organisation.
  3. ^ 'Don't know' and 'None' removed
  4. ^ Party members were asked to rank the 5 candidates. These results show what percentage of Conservative members put the candidate in their top 4.

2019 Conservative voters

[edit]
Multi-candidate polling
Dates
conducted
Pollster Client Sample
size
Penny
Mordaunt
[a]
Jeremy
Hunt
Suella
Braverman
Jacob
Rees-Mogg
[a]
Kemi
Badenoch
Grant
Shapps
[a]
Others None Don't know
13–20 June 2024 Deltapoll Helm Partners 1,511 25% 13% 10% 6% 4% 3% 19% 20%
  1. ^ a b c This MP lost their seat at the 2024 general election, and was therefore ineligible to run

General public

[edit]

National polling under potential leaders

[edit]

Electoral Calculus conducted a multilevel regression with poststratification (MRP) opinion poll from 11–15 October 2024 on behalf of Jack Lewy of the Robert Jenrick campaign, asking the general public how they would vote if respectively Kemi Badenoch or Robert Jenrick were elected leader of the Conservatives. The results showed that Jenrick would perform slightly better in a general election than Badenoch.

Dates

conducted

Pollster Client Area Sample

size

Implied Conservative leader Lab Con Lib Dems SNP Reform Green Plaid Cymru Others Majority / lead
11–15 October 2024 Find Out Now/Electoral Calculus (MRP) Jack Lewy / Robert Jenrick GB 6,289 Kemi Badenoch Seats 332 151 63 48 25 4 4 5 Labour majority of 14
Vote share 29% 22% 12% 4% 21% 10% 1% 1% 7%
Robert Jenrick Seats 311 178 58 48 24 4 4 5 Hung (Labour 15 short)
Vote share 28% 23% 12% 4% 20% 11% 1% 1% 5%
Multi-candidate polling
Dates
conducted
Pollster Client Sample
size
Kemi
Badenoch
James
Cleverly
Robert
Jenrick
Priti
Patel
Mel
Stride
Tom
Tugendhat
Suella
Braverman
Others Don't know/ NOTA
4–7 October 2024 Deltapoll N/A 2,108 7% 13% 8% 9% 62%
14–16 August 2024 Opinium The Observer 2,050 5% 6% 2% 7% 2% 6% 72%
5–7 August 2024 BMG Research The i 1,523 4% 8% 5% 6% 2% 6% 69%
31 July – 2 August 2024 Opinium The Observer 2,063 6% 7% 3% 7% 2% 7% 69%
17–19 July 2024 Opinium The Observer 2,050 5% 8% 3% 5% 6% 8% 6% 60%
21–25 June 2024 JL Partners GB News 8,030 7% 6% 7% 9% 10% 61%

Results

[edit]

Incumbent leader Rishi Sunak did not vote in the ballots.[81]

Candidate MPs' 1st ballot:
4 September 2024[48]
MPs' 2nd ballot:
10 September 2024[50]
MPs' 3rd ballot:
8 October 2024
MPs' 4th ballot:
9 October 2024
Votes %[a] Votes ± %[a] Votes ± %[a] Votes ± %[a]
Kemi Badenoch 22 18.6 28 Increase6 23.5 30 Increase2 25.2 42 Increase12 34.7
Robert Jenrick 28 23.7 33 Increase5 27.7 31 Decrease2 26.1 41 Increase10 33.9
James Cleverly 21 17.8 21 Steady 17.6 39 Increase18 32.8 37 Decrease2 30.6
Tom Tugendhat 17 14.4 21 Increase4 17.6 20 Decrease1 16.8 Eliminated
Mel Stride 16 13.6 16 Steady 13.4 Eliminated
Priti Patel 14 11.9 Eliminated
Votes cast 118 97.5 119 Increase1 98.3 120 Increase1 99.2 120 Steady 99.2
Abstentions 3 2.5 2 Decrease1 1.7 1 Decrease1 0.8 1 Steady 0.8
Registered voters 121 100.0 121 0 100.0 121 0 100.0 121 0 100.00


Notes

[edit]
  1. ^ a b c d Percentage of voting electorate for candidates, percentage of total electorate for votes cast.

References

[edit]
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