Do the Tories know how to select a good leader anymore?

Whoever succeeds Mrs May when she goes will be what is now called “an unelected Prime Minister”. That’s to say, he or she will not be in Number 10 as a result of victory in a General Election. In the not very distant past this would have surprised nobody, been resented by few, and not held to make the new PM’s position somehow improper. Indeed only three Tory leaders since the 1914-18 war became Prime Minister for the first time with a popular mandate: Ted Heath in 1970, Margaret Thatcher in 1979, and David Cameron in 2010 – though that year’s election didn’t give him a majority in the Commons and he was only able to become PM in a coalition with the Liberal Democrats.

The other twentieth century Tory Prime Ministers – Bonar Law, Baldwin, Chamberlain, Churchill, Eden, Macmillan, Douglas-Home and Major – first became Prime Minister in the course of a parliament, and nobody thought this odd or improper. Major, alone of these, was elected party leader, in his case by an electorate restricted to Tory Members of Parliament. Ted Heath had been the first Tory leader elected in this way and Margaret Thatcher would be the second when she challenged Heath. All the others emerged after what came to be called “the customary process of consultation”. Actually the process changed from time to time, and might not have been correctly termed “customary”.

The curious thing – curious to us now anyway – is that nobody seems to have objected much to this way of choosing a leader, not until some light was shone on the circumstances in which the 14th Earl of Home succeeded Harold Macmillan and returned to the House of Common as Sir Alec-Douglas-Home. Iain Macleod, who had favoured Rab Butler, blew the gaff in an article in The Spectator, asserting that the succession had been rigged by Macmillan (from his hospital bed) and “a Magic Circle” of Old Etonians. After Labour narrowly won the election the following year (1964) Douglas-Home oversaw the change to a formal system by which Tory MPs would elect the party leader.

By the beginning of this century, there was pressure for paid-up party members to be involved in selecting the leader they were expected to work for. This made some sort of democratic sense. So we have arrived at the present arrangement. This provides for MPs to hold rounds of voting until the number of candidates is reduced to two, at which point the final selection is entrusted to party members.

Agreeably democratic though this may be, it is seriously flawed. As the circle of those choosing a party leader and actual or prospective Prime Minister has widened, there has been a move from knowledge to ignorance. The customary process or “magic circle” had no doubt its weaknesses and there was some justice in criticisms directed at it. On the other hand there was this to be said for it. Those involved were senior figures in the party, with experience of government. They had worked with the possible successors, knew them well, and had had plenty of opportunity to assess their character and abilities, recognise both their strengths and their weaknesses. They might not always get it right. Prejudice might influence judgement. Nevertheless the final selection was made on the basis of informed opinion. One may think mistakes were made, but one can’t deny that every Tory leader and Prime Minister from Baldwin to Alec Douglas-Home was a man of ability and stature.

The reform which entrusted selection of the leader to MPs created a less well-informed electorate, for back-bench members had no direct knowledge of how candidates had performed in Cabinet. Nevertheless they knew them, had talked with them in the bars of Westminster or with fellow-members who knew them well, and had listened to them in the House. They had mostly had a fair opportunity to assess their character and ability. So they didn’t do a bad job. Choosing Heath in 1965, Thatcher ten years later, and Major in 1990 were all, one might argue, in the circumstances of the day, the right decisions.

Handing the final choice to Party Members represents a move from knowledge and familiarity with the qualities of the candidates towards a mere impression. This is the first criticism to make. It is valid. Anyone who doubts it should take a look at the Labour Party. No Labour “Magic Circle” of men and women with experience of Government would ever have made Jeremy Corbyn leader. Nor would he have been elected by a majority of his fellow MPs; not a chance. Handing the choice of leader to the party membership saddled Labour with a leader whom even long-standing Labour voters cannot see as a credible Prime Minister, and often cannot bring themselves to vote for.

The Conservative Party membership has been shrinking for years. It is now believed to be around 120,000. It is concentrated, naturally perhaps, in safe Conservative seats, and it is increasingly elderly. Its fears, hopes, interests and concerns are not perhaps those of a great mass of people who still vote Conservative, certainly not of those voters whom the Tories must win back or attract for the first time if they are to win a majority in a general election.

So Conservative Party members have a great responsibility. They must ask hard questions of themselves, for it will not be enough to choose a candidate who will be the Darling of the Chilterns and prosperous suburbs, nor indeed one who will win back the Faragistes. All General Elections are won in the centre ground. This may have shifted, or be shifting still. Nobody knows what part Brexit will play in the next election, whenever that is held. But we do know that the Tory Party’s appeal has been narrowing, its natural constituency shrinking. There are people to be won back and more to be won for the first time. There is ground – surprisingly regained in Scotland – to be retained. Mrs May lost her majority in 2017 but she had enough seats to do a deal with the DUP because of the Conservative revival in Scotland under the leadership of Ruth Davidson.

Choose the wrong leader now and that revival will at best come to a juddering halt, at worst go into sharp reverse. Choose the wrong leader and Tory members may find they have made the impossible possible, and see Corbyn receiving the seals of office from the Queen.

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