Conservative Leadership Election - Another fine mess?

 

Conservative Leadership Election – Another fine mess?

 

This week I received the following email from the Chairman of the 1922 Committee:

John, 

 

Following meetings of the 1922 Executive Committee and the Conservative Party Board, the rules on how the Conservative Party leadership contest will proceed have been agreed.

 

Rishi Sunak has formally stepped down as Leader of the Conservative and Unionist Party and will remain as Acting Leader until a successor is elected. The announcement of the new leader will take place on Saturday November 2nd.

Candidates will need a proposer, a seconder and 8 nominations to proceed to the ballot. 

 

This is a sensible step and should be kept for future Leadership Elections.   Thank goodness they did not specify 100 nominations like the last Leadership election!

 

Nominations will open on Wednesday 24th July at 7pm and will close on Monday 29th July at 2:30pm.

In September the Parliamentary Party will narrow the field down to four candidates. 

 

No detail is given as to how this will be done but if it is the same as previously this is the time when MPs will only have one question – “What is in it for me to support you as the candidate?”

This is the time when the process is manipulated by promises of jobs, gongs, appointments peerages, knighthoods, position on the front bench (not so valuable now), etc.

 To avoid this conflict  of interest voting should be done all at once on a preferential basis as follows:

 

Procedures for Balloting of the Parliamentary Party to determine the four candidates to be presented to the General Membership of the Conservative Party for election as Leader.

14      The Returning Officer will prepare a ballot paper listing the names of all the candidates and will issue a copy for the purpose of balloting to each member of the House of Commons in receipt of the Conservative Whip.

15      Any candidate may withdraw his or her name by advising the Returning Officer to that effect no less than 24 hours prior to the opening of the ballot unless by doing so only one nomination remains, in which case the withdrawal is not permitted.

16      If there are four candidates or less in the first ballot, then those candidates shall go forward to the  membership of the Conservative Party for election.

17      If more than four valid nominations are received the Returning Officer shall announce that a ballot will be held on the Tuesday immediately following the closing date for nominations.

18      If more than four candidates remain in the first ballot, each Member of Parliament will indicate their choice from the candidates listed, listing them in order of preference.

19      Where any Member is unavoidably absent from the House on the day of the ballot for any reason acceptable to the Returning Officer, the Returning Officer shall make appropriate arrangements for the appointment of a proxy.

20      The ballot will be secret and neither the names of those who have voted nor the names of those who have abstained from voting shall be disclosed by the Returning Officer.

21       The Returning Officer will announce the number of votes received by each candidate.

22      If there are more than four candidates in the first ballot, then the candidate receiving the fewest votes in the ballot shall withdraw and their second preference votes distributed to the other candidates. Further counts will be held using the same process until there are only four candidates left.

23      The four candidates who are left after the distribution of second preference votes shall go forward to the  Party members for election.

24      None of the candidates to go forward  to the membership may withdraw without the agreement of both the Chairman of the 1922 Committee and the Board of the Party. In the event of the death of any candidate the ballot of the Parliamentary Party will be reopened and re-run.

 

Those four will then make their case to Party Members at Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham (29 September to 2 October)

After Conference, the parliamentary party will then whittle it down to the final two candidates, who will then be subject to a vote by Conservative Party members.

 

More opportunity for wheeler dealing, manipulation, etc to take place by the MPs.   Why not put all four candidates to the Party members and let them vote on a preferential basis as follows:

Procedure for the election of the Leader of the Party by the Membership of the Conservative Party.

25     Only those Party Members and Scottish Party Members who are United Kingdom citizens over the age of 18 and were members of the Party from the time of the call for nominations by the Chairman of the 1922 Committee for the election of the Leader and have been members for at least three months immediately prior to the close of nominations for the election of the Leader shall be eligible to vote in a Leadership election.

 26    The Chairman of the 1922 Committee will be responsible for the conduct of all ballots specified in these rules and will settle all matters in relation thereto.

 27    The candidates selected by the Parliamentary Party will go forward to a secret online ballot of all members of the Conservative Party.   The Secretary of the Board shall provide for voting to take place by post in respect of any member for whom there is no recorded email address.

28     The Returning Officer shall agree with the Board the closing date for the ballot which shall be as soon as practicable after the date of the ballot of the of the Parliamentary Party.

29     The ballot shall be closed at Noon on the date selected and the votes counted thereafter.

30     Voting by the Party members will be done on a preferential basis with the voter listing their order of preference, the winner being the first Candidate to obtain more than 50% of the vote. If on counting the first preference votes no Candidate gets over 50% the Candidate with the lowest number of votes drops out and their votes are distributed to the other Candidates according to their second preferences. Should no Candidate get more than 50% of the vote after the redistribution, the process is repeated.

31     In the event of two candidates receiving an equal number of votes for the winning place the matter shall be resolved by re-balloting the membership of the Party with just those two candidates.

32     The Returning Officer shall agree with the Board who is responsible, under his direction, for receiving and counting the votes in the online ballot.

33     The Returning Officer will announce the results of the election as soon as practicable to a meeting of the Parliamentary Party and representative members of the Conservative Party to be called by the Board.

 

As Chairman of the 1922 Committee I will be acting as the returning officer in this leadership election.

 

Once the parliamentary process is completed, the Party Board will assume responsibility for the administration of the vote of the Conservative Party membership.

 

Only members who have been a Party member for 90 days or more immediately prior to the ballot closing, and have been an active member at the time of the nominations for candidates opening, will be eligible to vote. 

 

The Party Constitution states as follows:

“Only those Party members and Scottish Party members who were members of the Party from the time of the call for the nominations by the Chairman of the 1922 committee for the election of the Leader and have been members for at least three months immediately prior to the close of the ballot for the election of the Leader shall be entitled to vote.”

 

Why didn’t CCHQ use this wording as per the Constitution in making this announcement.   They have inserted “active” before member.   What does “active” mean.   No one knows! Are they trying to change the Constitution?   What a fine mess!

 

The ballot of qualified members will be conducted via secure online voting and it will close on Thursday 31st October at 5pm. 

The result will be announced on Saturday 2nd November.

 

Adopt the proposals suggested above and the dates could easily be brought forward BY 3 WEEKS!

One further point Foreign citizens are able to be members of the Conservative Party.   Their support is welcome but they owe no allegiance to the United Kingdom so should not be allowed to vote for the Leader of the Conservative Party. Only those Party Members and Scottish Party Members who are United Kingdom citizens over the age of 18 should be eligible to vote in the Leadership election.