Senior Tory Says 'Crazy' Way Conservatives Choose PMs Needs To Change
A senior Tory backbencher has called for the Conservatives to change how it selects new leaders when the party is in government.
As chair of the backbench 1922 committee, Graham Brady is the one who receives letters of no confidence from other Tory MPs wishing to oust their leader.
He has been in the role throughout the last few years, as the party – and the country – has been led by Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak.
Brady told students at Durham University last Thursday that if a Conservative PM leave office, MPs should decide who takes their place.
At the moment, grassroots Conservative organisations can choose their successor.
That is how Truss first got into office, even though Sunak had more support from MPs.
In a recording leaked to The Telegraph this week, Brady said it was “crazy” Tory members could choose a prime minister.
He pointed back to former Tory leader Lord Hague’s reform to the selection process in 1997.
He changed the process so Tory MPs choose two potential contenders from among their ranks, and the members then select their preferred choice.
Brady said: “I’m the first chairman of the ’22 committee to operate [this system] while we’ve been in government.
“And so my view is that that was a mistake to introduce that rule. I think it’s fine to have the party members voting on the leader when you’re in opposition.”
Shortly after Truss was appointed as PM over Sunak by the narrowest margin since the system was introduced, Lord Hague also said the members should no longer pick Tory leaders.
Brady said: “In a parliamentary system where you could only remain prime minister if you enjoyed the confidence of your party in parliament, it seems to me crazy that we now have different mechanisms in that the parliamentary party – that Conservative members of parliament can get rid of the leader by voting no confidence, but then the leader is supplied by the party members.”
He said he would prefer to remove the vote for the members when the party is in government.
However, Brady noted: “It’ll never happen because you’ll need the party members to vote by a super majority in a constitutional change in order to make that different. And they won’t.”
His comments comes more than a year after Truss dramatically resigned as PM, having spent a total of just 49 days in office.
Sunak was elected unopposed as the new Tory leader, meaning the vote did not go to the party members.
Local elections on Wednesday are expected to deliver a damning result for the Conservatives, and could see a wave of Tory rebels calling for Sunak to step down ahead of the general election later this year.
But Brady later told The Telegraph he was not advocating for a change in leadership with his comments.
