The Tory big beasts begin their battle to dethrone Boris Johnson

Vultures are swirling in Westminster, Boris has never looked so vulnerable and all the usual suspects are on manoeuvres. So who might be our next Prime Minister, and what stands in their way? Martha Gill reports
Evening Standard Comp
Martha Gill19 January 2022

As he sits in his office in Downing Street this week, surrounded by the ghosts of parties past, Boris Johnson is getting increasingly rattled, as voter anger builds and MPs eye up a leadership contest to replace him.

His admission that he attended a party in Downing Street at the height of lockdown has galvanised things — and a bungled, near-tearful interview with Beth Rigby on Sky News last night hasn’t helped matters.

Huddles are forming in Portcullis House, invitations to breakfast summits and evening drinks are landing in MPs’ inboxes, and questions are pinging around WhatsApp about which campaign staff might be good to bring on board. Then there are the WhatsApp groups to sound people out for campaigns; as early as November, Red Wall Tories set up a group called “Liz for Leader”. Eleven members of the 2019 Conservative party intake are thought to have submitted letters of no confidence in the PM this morning. Others are rumoured to be submitting them this afternoon.

Still, most MPs tend to think autumn’s Tory conference is the deadline for finding a new leader. Yet things are delicate. Most want to hold off triggering a contest until Sue Gray publishes her investigation into Partygate. There have been rumours a hustings could take place as early as March, but it is likely candidates will be reluctant to strike out on the stump that soon, with Omicron in play, local elections looming and papers full of stories about the impending cost of living crisis. Tory introspection risks looking self-indulgent — and some think Boris is not the type to sit meekly doing his job while a leadership election takes place. All in, it’s better to wait for the summer.

The most obvious candidate is Chancellor Rishi Sunak, who has kept his hands clean on Partygate and is viewed as someone with whom the party could “press reset”. “He has a lot of backbench respect,” says one MP. “His court is small, but very loyal. He is in that respect the opposite of Boris, who has a large but disloyal one.” But as a contender, Sunak’s challenges stack up. One is that he is younger than his competitors, just 41, and hasn’t had time to gain sufficient support among backbenchers to propel him through the race. Some reckon his swift rise doesn’t endear him to others. “The parliamentary party and voluntary party can’t stand golden girls and golden boys,” says one senior Tory member. His wealthy background can spark envy too: he’s a Winchester-educated ex hedge fund manager married to the daughter of a billionaire. The donors, say an insider, “find him a bit drippy”.

First UK Cabinet Meeting Held As MPs Return From Summer Recess
Battle royale: Rishi Sunak is the most obvious leadership candidate
Getty Images

That Sunak has agreed to tax rises in the wake of the pandemic makes it tricky for him to show the Right he shares their economic views. Others reckon the party will frame this as necessary measures in extraordinary times. Still, coming challenges at the Treasury will impinge on his performance too. “To expand support he needs to properly tackle the cost of living crisis,” says one. Some also think his attempt at courting backbenchers has fallen flat. “Last week he met backbenchers every day for round tables on the cost of living, but backbenchers love attention — you need to move your professional relationships into friendship,” an MP notes. Others dispute this; sounding out backbenchers about policy shows he is taking them seriously. Nevertheless, most agree campaigning doesn’t come easily to Sunak. “Rishi is seen as a technocrat”, says an insider. “He’s more comfortable in front of a screen than on top of a tank”.

That’s a reference to Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, 46, whom many see as his main challenger — and who channelled Thatcher by posing on a military tank in November. In contrast to Sunak, she loves the limelight and campaigning. “She’s on the ball socially and dreadfully networked in,” says one Tory member. “She’s always challenging you — it’s very sort of flirty.” Like Sunak, she’s pitching to the economically Right-wing liberal section of the party, but is better positioned: she’s the poster girl for buccaneering small-state libertarianism and regularly tops polls in Conservative Home.

Yet Steve Baker, described as a “kingmaker” and their de facto spokesman, hasn’t decided who to back. “I don’t know when a contest will come but I’m confident I’ll be busy when it does — I just don’t know who I’ll be busy for,” he says. Still, Truss is on manoeuvres: she’s been hosting “fizz with Liz” events on a Monday (guests are said to have included former education secretary Gavin Williamson and Scottish Tory leader, Douglas Ross, who called for Johnson’s resignation last week). She’s also been spotted at 5 Hertford Street, considered by insiders to be the real Tory HQ.

Brexit
On manoeuvres: Liz Truss
PA

Truss is popular among Red Wall MPs, under whom they think they stand a better chance of holding onto their seats. Her bouncy personality can endear or repel. “You’ll walk away laughing from a conversation with her,” says a fan. “She’s full of wacky non sequiturs.” She has eclectic interests too. “She’s obsessed with maths. When she’s hiring staff she’ll fire mental arithmetic at them — she’s very good at it herself.” But critics find her “off-the-wall nuts”. And far from being a favourite, “backbenchers think of her as quite batty”, says one MP. Truss was educated at a comprehensive in Leeds, then Oxford, and was elected as a Tory MP after a spell as a management consultant and chair of Reform. She is now one of Boris’s longest-serving Cabinet members; she’s been there since 2014. “She’s managed to stick around this long by being fairly low-key, other than the cheese speech,” says one Tory-watcher (in a conference speech in 2014, Truss launched into a burlesque defence of British produce: “We import two-thirds of our cheese! That is a disgrace!”). Yet some insiders think her track record will not help her. “She got a lot of credit on trade by recycling deals,” says one. “They haven’t forgotten she screwed up Justice either.” And she may be a Brexiteer now, but Truss supported Remain in 2016. Others think her bullish approach as Foreign Secretary will help.

Tory leadership contests are difficult to predict: front-runners often knock each other out. “You’ll probably end up with either Rishi or Liz in the final two, but not both,” says Henry Hill, deputy editor of Conservative Home. A successful challenger would likely come from a different wing of the party. Some reckon Jeremy Hunt could soak up the votes from the centre, and is unsullied by the party’s recent scandals. There are rumours he has come to a “non-aggression pact” with Sunak to squeeze out Truss, but he’s staying coy: “I won’t say my ambition has completely vanished, but it would take a lot to persuade me to put my hat into the ring,” he said this week. The challenge could come from the other direction. “There’s a potential for an Andrea Leadsom-style surprise,” says Hill (she unexpectedly made it into the final two in the 2016 contest). “Someone who really doubles down on immigration and the culture war.”

British oil tanker Stena Impero
In the running: Jeremy Hunt
PA

A non-Cabinet candidate might make good progress. There is resentment from the parliamentary party towards No 10 and the current Cabinet who, riding high on their 2019 majority, have not put in the effort to keep them onside. “There is huge animosity there,” says an insider. “People feel let down.” Partygate has intensified these feelings. Given this, says a senior Tory member, “I think the parliamentary party, especially the Red Wall, would want to back a candidate who was not part of the Covid Cabinet”.

But where the cards eventually fall is almost impossible to predict. Among the names bandied about are MPs Johnny Mercer and Tom Tugendhat, Education Secretary Nadim Zahawi, Health Secretary Sajid Javid, trade minister Penny Mordaunt, Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng, ex-chief whip Mark Harper and Home Secretary Priti Patel. As one insider puts it, “every MP looks in the mirror and sees a future prime minister”.

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