MPs have started declaring their support for Sunak, Johnson and Mordaunt
After spending Liz Truss’s premiership keeping an extremely low profile, Rishi Sunak is firmly back on the scene this morning, with several MPs declaring their support in a coordinated social media push last night.
Sunak’s deepest appeal to MPs is his promise of absolution: if you think the voters’ distaste for Boris Johnson is only outdone by their disgust at everything that has happened since, Sunak allows you to rewind the clock, but not too far.
Among the MPs who voiced their support for Sunak on Twitter were Simon Hart, Helen Whately, Huw Merriman and Nick Gibb.
Hart said that this was “no time for experiments; no time for frivolity…this means choosing someone serious, tested, competent and kind.”
After the last few weeks the very least we can do for the country is get the right Prime Minister this time. No time for experiments; no time for frivolity; no time to line up a job offer. This means choosing someone serious, tested, competent & kind.
For me that’s Rishi Sunak.— Simon Hart (@Simonhartmp) October 20, 2022
While Sunak beats the other plausible candidates, apart from Johnson, in recent membership polls, it is easy to see the former PM’s hardcore in the rank and file coalescing around Penny Mordaunt instead. So Sunak would certainly rather have the race sewn up early. But given the deep divides in the party over economic policy, as well as whether he should be held personally responsible for Johnson’s demise, any impression of unity is likely to be only a superficial effect.
Former culture secretary and current member for Mid Bedfordshire Nadine Dorries was among those who voiced support for Boris Johnson on Thursday, both on television and on Twitter, where she said, “One person was elected by the British public with a manifesto and a mandate until January 25”:
One person was elected by the British public with a manifesto and a mandate until January ‘25.
If Liz Truss is no longer PM there can be no coronation of previously failed candidates.MPs must demand return of @BorisJohnson – if not it has to be leadership election or a GE.
— Nadine Dorries (@NadineDorries) October 20, 2022
Member for West Cornwall Derek Thomas tweeted in support of Mordaunt, who he said had been his first choice when he supported Truss:
Although she wasn’t my first choice, I supported Liz Truss because I believed she would deliver the growth this country needs.
She herself accepted in her resignation speech that she will not be able to do so.
My first choice for Prime Minister is again Penny Mordaunt.#PMforPM— Derek Thomas MP (@DerekThomasUK) October 20, 2022
Key events
Filters BETA
The former Tory Cabinet office minister Sir David Lidington says Boris Johnson should not be looking to make a political comeback because “he has had his chance”.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:
We do need competence now at a time of great economic challenge for this country.
Boris Johnson has always been somebody who has focused on the big picture, not on detail. He is not really interested in the detail of governing and nor when he was prime minister did he appoint a couple of ministers with delegated authority on his behalf to get things done, instead we had bunches of aides in Number 10 busy briefing the media and shouting at each other most of the time.
He added:
Even on top of the fact that he is still being investigated by Parliament on allegations of deliberately lying to MPs, I think he has had his chance and the Conservative parliamentary party concluded just a few months ago this could not go on and it would not be right for him to continue as prime minister – that, after all, is why he resigned.
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey has urged Tory MPs to do their “patriotic duty” and call for a general election so the country can have a “fresh start”.
Speaking on BBC Breakfast, he said the Tories had shown they were unfit to govern. He said:
We don’t need another Conservative prime minister lurching from crisis to crisis. We need to get rid of them. That has to mean a general election.
Boris Johnson ‘not the character to restore our reputation’, says Tory MP
Conservative MP Crispin Blunt says Boris Johnson is “not the character” to restore the party’s reputation right now – but that he could return in the future.
Johnson has “the most astonishing set of skills”, Blunt told Sky News. “There are one or two weaknesses kicking around in that personality,” he added.
Blunt, who is standing down at the next election, said he doesn’t think “we can go back there for the next two years”. He said:
[Johnson] is probably not the character to restore our reputation for the next two years … however, in the future, beyond the next stage general election, as far as I’m concerned, the question entirely open.
Now we need someone who has got the proven personal capabilities of being prime minister, as well as then delivering the kind of administration which, in two years time, the country can make a decision on having seen the values and qualities of the Conservative party at their best in action.
Blunt said he was backing Rishi Sunak to be the next leader, after having “wavered in the course of the last week” between Sunak and Jeremy Hunt.
The former Conservative party leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith has called for his party to unite behind whoever becomes the new PM.
The “depressing reality” is that the Conservative party is becoming “ungovernable”, he writes in an article in the Telegraph published last night. He said:
Rather than grasping the prospect of changing things while in power, it is now more concerned about what it stands against than what it stands for. Small wonder we have completed three regicides and four leadership elections in the space of five years. This is a totally unsustainable way to behave.
Without endorsing anyone in particular for leader, he calls on Tory MPs to “understand that the only hope we have of turning this terrible situation around is if the parliamentary party rallies behind the victor – once and for all”.
The founder of the ConservativeHome website Tim Montgomerie says the prospect of Boris Johnson making it into the final stage of the Tory party leadership race should be taken “very” seriously.
Johnson could receive “close to 140” nominations from Tory MPs, Montgomerie told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
He said:
Boris Johnson is very popular amongst grassroots members and Rishi Sunak, the other leading contender for the crown, is much less popular. So I wouldn’t want to make any cast iron prediction in this crazy world of politics at the moment but I think Boris Johnson returning is a very real possibility.
He added that there are many Tories who “hate the idea of Johnson becoming leader” again, with talk of MPs potentially resigning the whip if he succeeds.
What’s coming up today
Hello everyone. I’m Léonie Chao-Fong, taking over the live blog from Helen Sullivan to take you through the latest in British politics. I’m on Twitter or you can email me.
Here’s the agenda for the day:
Lib Dem leader Ed Davey will be doing a broadcast round this morning.
6.30am: Scottish Tory MP John Lamont, who is supporting Penny Mordaunt, was on BBC Breakfast, followed by Tory MPs Crispin Blunt at 7:30am and Paul Bristow at 8.05am. The shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves will speak at 8.30am followed by the SNP Westminster leader, Ian Blackford, at 9.05am.
7am: Borrowing data for September from the Office for National Statistics.
7:15am. Tory MP Crispin Blunt will be on Sky News at 7.15am, followed by the shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, at 7.20am. Chatham House’s director Bronwen Maddox is on at 7.40am, then the former adviser to Boris Johnson, Will Walden, at 7.45am. Tory MP Christopher Chope is on at 8.20am followed by the SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford at 8.45am.
7.20am: The former education minister Nicky Morgan will be speaking on Times radio, followed by Conservative MP Richard Graham and Jill Rutter of the UK in a Changing Europe think tank at 7:40am. The former Truss adviser Kirsty Buchanan will be on at 8.20am), then the Tory MP Bob Seely, supporting Mordaunt, at 9.05am.
7.32am: Sir Christopher Chope, supporting Boris Johnson, will be on TalkTV followed by Steve Double, supporting Rishi Sunak, at 8.05am.
9.30am: HMRC releases house sales figures.
9:30am: Sits in the House of Commons for Private Members’ bills.
2:45pm. Plaid Cymru’s leader, Adam Price, will address the party’s conference in Llandudno.
That’s it from me, Helen Sullivan, for today. My colleague Léonie Chao-Fong will see you through the next few hours, come what may.
Boris Johnson’s allies say he is considering running – but could he win?
Boris Johnson is considering running again to be UK prime minister, with rightwing Conservative MPs and party donors already backing his nascent campaign – but as Pippa Crerar and Jessica Elgot report, he is a deeply divisive figure within the parliamentary party, and has an inquiry into the Partygate affair still hanging over him.
Nonetheless, Johnson remains popular with the Tory grassroots, who could get a say in the process of choosing a new leader. A YouGov poll earlier this week found 32% put him as their top candidate, ahead of Sunak at 23%.
MPs said they believed the influence of the rightwing ERG faction of the party, which previously backed Johnson, was “greatly diminished” by the collapse of Truss.
“It is very hard to see how anyone on the right of the party comes through now,” one long-serving Tory said. “But you will need people like Priti [Patel] in cabinet. If it’s all one nation types it collapses again in six months.”
The prospect of Johnson bidding for the top job sent many moderate Tory MPs into paroxysms of despair, and polling showed he remained unpopular with huge swaths of the public.
In an interview with LBC’s Andrew Marr, the former cabinet minister David Davis told Johnson “Go back to the beach”, while other Conservatives variously described the former prime minister as “electorally toxic”, “dangerous for democracy” and “Labour’s secret weapon”.
If a cabinet reshuffle follows when a new PM is elected, the UK could get its sixth education secretary in just over a year:
If there’s a reshuffle with a new PM that would mean the sixth education secretary in 14 months. It is a national disagrace to treat the country like this. https://t.co/DONtQUmyFf
— Sam Freedman (@Samfr) October 20, 2022
That’s more, the New Statesman’s Jeremy Cliffe points out, than Germany has had in the last 24 years:
Looking likely that by early November the UK will have gone through more education secretaries in the past 14 months than Germany has in the past 24 years. https://t.co/0ojtRwjr42
— Jeremy Cliffe (@JeremyCliffe) October 21, 2022
What happens next?
Jessica Elgot
Liz Truss has resigned as prime minister, saying she expects a replacement to be in place by the end of next week. Sir Graham Brady, the chair of the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers that decides the rules of a leadership contest, set out the rules on Thursday evening as follows:
When will there be a new prime minister?
Brady said he hoped the process would be concluded by 28 October – next Friday. But the result could come much sooner – perhaps even by Monday night.
What do candidates need to do?
Candidates will need a minimum of 100 nominations to proceed to the ballot, according to new rules decided by a committee of MPs. Nominations start on Thursday night and close at 2pm on Monday.
If two or three candidates reach the threshold – which is possible – then there will be two rounds of voting from MPs. The first vote will take place on Monday at 3.30pm with results announced at 6pm and an indicative round, if needed, would take place that evening, with the final result at 9pm.
MPs will hear from the nominated candidates at a hustings – but it will be behind closed doors.
Will the wider Tory membership be consulted?
Yes – despite the wishes of many Tory MPs. But they will not get to vote unless more than one candidate receives 100 or more nominations. A ballot of members will be conducted via “secure online voting” – according to the party.
The ballot will close at 11am on Friday 28 October and the result will be announced later that day. Only qualifying members, who have been a member for at least three months, can vote.
There will be at least one hustings between the final two candidates, via a broadcaster which is likely to be the BBC.
More here:
China’s state-run Global Times has also responded to the turmoil in the UK, saying it could “be seen as a microcosm of failing Western politics,” and that “the long-term practice of Western democracy cannot solve emerging new problems”.
Former Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull said on Friday that the UK “looks like a shambles”.
“At the moment the place looks like a shambles. It is very sad,” he said at a conference in Sydney on Friday. “I think what she did was so mad,” Turnbull added in reference to Truss’s mini-budget that crashed the markets and triggered a domestic financial crisis.
“I was just staggered. I knew Boris was wild and woolly but Liz Truss appeared to be a more sensible person, but turned out to be even crazier.”
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