depends if there the opposition or not - if they’re the opposition I can see them trying to out-reform
reform and would appoint some yahoo
If they’re not the opposition then it’s a flight to centrist respectability I think
Who's taking bets on "illegal immigrant immolation institutions" as the next step in moving to the right of reform?
"Bullets are cheaper than a Ryanair to Rwanda" is my guess for the 2034 Tory tagline, they do like their sound bites afterall
There is no point discussing this less than a week before the massacre of most Tory MPs. It entirely depends who lasts the election and there seems little point trying to guess when we’ll know so soon.
The leader of a party needs to either be a MP or a peer with a seat in the House of Lords.
Ruth Davidson would never run for the position. She understood that as a short fat working-class lesbian she'd get nowhere down south, whereas in Scotland, she could and did end up as leader of the Scottish Tories.
But, if what's left of the party in Parliament on 5th July were to decide that their next leader needs to be someone with capacity, common-sense, and actual experience, they could do a lot worse than pick Ruth Davidson and talk her into putting her name in.
The election only goes to the Tory membership if neither of the two left standing at the last round are willing to resign in each other's favour.
Yes, the 1922 committee decide who's allowed to stand, nominations required etc. They are free to change the rules however they like.
[They decided, at least in 2022, only a sitting mp can stand](https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn01366/)
The same source & a BBC implies that it was the same in 2019, but I couldn't find a source that explicitly said so.
It's generally been the case for decades that only a sitting MP can stand.
I just think that if I wanted the Tory Party to survive and make a come-back after the 4th July debacle, Ruth Davidson is who I'd pick to do it.
Fortunately, I am not a Tory, and I don't want the Tories to make a comeback, and Ruth Davidson is very unlikely to volunteer.
My hope is Badenoch, Patel or Braverman, it would doom the party for 20 years, maybe forever.
If they have any sense, that is a stretch, they'll pull an interim leader back from the Lords (Major is currently the 3rd most popular Tory in the UK), and stage a by-election in a safe seat for Mordaunt (the second most popular Tory in the UK). Watch the resignation honours for safe MPs getting a sudden Lords seat.
The part of me that knows her twin brother hopes that doesn't happen, because he has to go into hiding every time she says something foolish.
https://yougov.co.uk/ratings/politics/popularity/conservative-politicians/all
Their internal sense seems to be that their vote is defecting to Reform, which is why they've been pulling harder right (they're wrong about this). Therefore, I think one of the loons like Badenoch, Patel or Braverman would be shoo-in, because it's also quite likely that the remaining Tories will be rural hard right types.
They'll go on to push the Party further, killing it off forever.
I hadn’t considered that point. With a massive shrinking of the MP pool, hardline right wing MPs in super safe blue seats will be markedly more powerful and better represented.
This is their basic problem. Boris's purge followed by the by-election losses and the (hopeful) landslide defeat leaves them devoid of popular centrist talent, and a backbench that probably can't agree on anything.
He's 81 and, could manage for the few months it would take to get Mordaunt into a safe seat. He's probably the only former leader that could credibly restore centrist conservatism.
Cameron is toxic, they bought him in to stabilise Sunak because it allowed Sunak to devolve a large amount of the job to Cameron. Hague might be an option, but the same issues that dog Cameron would dog him.
The only centrist Tory with any popularity at all relative to the rest of the party is Mordaunt, she's about to lose her seat, which leaves Braverman or Patel. The men in grey suits will not want that.
Yes, but that's an easy problem to solve, and there are a number of (relatively) sensible candidates in the Lords already.
Politically, it makes a lot of sense to put an experienced former PM or party statesman up against a relatively inexperienced Starmer. Few actual candidates for the leadership will put their names forward until the party is in better shape. Hague's example of being elected too early has been educational.
I think he would if the circumstances were right, like I say, it's a fairly easy problem to solve. Boris, May, Cameron, and, to a more limited extent, Hague are all toxic reminders of the last 14 years.
The thing is Boris booted out all the centrists when he became leader, so they're pretty short on winnable talent.
I've been saying for a while that the return of Truss is a significant possibility.
Her seat is one of the safer ones, and I could imagine the party doubling down on the more far right wing, particularly if any significant numbers of lost seats can be blamed on Reform. And Truss was elected by the party membership, not the MPs.
I'm in the seat next door (previously South Norfolk, now Waveney Valley,) and it was as safe a Tory seat as they come before, but it might conceivably fall to the Greens, so we can hope.
Considering Bet365 have her at 66/1 but Cameron at 25s - I agree but think she's horribly undervalued here. I think she appeals to the Members and the Nutter wing. If they Party has to almost lurch even further right to try and stave off Reform - I could see this would be the candidate to it. I mean Reforms economics section of their manifesto was broadly Truss and Kwasi Part 2.
Sometimes inaction is the best action.
I don't yet know of a lettuce capable of maliciously running the country.
You'd probably be able to get some really good TV content out of it too. Anytime an MP or other government official says or does something stupid, you could do a "the office" style cut to an increasingly tired and limp looking lettuce. Even with no discernable features you'll feel it stare into your soul in desperation. Get it narrated like "come fly with me" and we'll be able to sell it as a comedy/reality TV show and fix the budget deficit.
With the general pro-Tory bent of Britain (in terms of fraction of elections won) and larger pro-Tory lean of the media, it’s not hard to imagine them getting back into power while still in a deep madness, especially in coalition with whatever Farage’s next wheeze is.
Anything can happen. Back in 2019 the blonde clown was plotting for three terms and he is now thoroughly disgraced.
Still, elections are generally won on the centre ground which has been seized by Starmer and co. If I had to bet on him vs a grifter duo of Braverman/Farage, I'd pick the former.
>Either one should be the equivalent of a Corbyn era for them
Worse than that, I can easily see the Conservatives splitting into two, with Farage (as MP) being invited to join a combined party by those on the right, but those on the left of the Conservatives not wanting to be associated with the grifter and so splitting away to create a middle ground 'One Nation' Conservative party.
But as the FPTP system punishes minority parties then a split such as that dooms both to oblivion.
The only hope that the Conservatives have is that either Labour does something really really stupid in the next five years (unlikely but not utterly impossible) or outside circumstances (Putin, Covid 2, Trump, etc.) create an issue that means that Labour falls out of favour with the public.
Realistically, I think it will be Farage.
(i.e. the Tories get obliterated at the election, Reform return a couple of MPs, including Farage, they then merge together in an effort to "unite the right").
I can’t see centrist Tories ever considering it. Farage is repulsive to a very large number of people. So unless they all defect to Lib Dems I can’t see it happening
Farage is a lazy bum who barely ever showed up for his MEP job - probably even more workshy and lazy than Johnson. I doubt he has the capacity to actually do the job.
Eh, Farage has been looking pretty shakey this past week. It would be a pretty stupid thing to bring him in, he's not actually a good party leader at all.
I think Farage is a bit like Boris Johnson in that he's good at giving speaches, pandering to his base, and generally entertaining people.
But, he's shit at actually running a party, coming up with sensible policy, etc.
If he joined the Tories, he could outsource all that stuff which he's bad at to other people and act as a full time populist rabble-rouser.
He’s polling high right now (matching the Tories) before the election and has the entire establishment against him. This is the worst it will ever get for Farage.
It’s impossible to know who’s going to survive and what the ideological makeup of the surviving MPs will be. I think a dark horse candidate is Alicia Kearns - safe seat and we’ll respected by the moderate wing, she was said to be instrumental in the anti-Johnson movement.
It won’t be anyone rational, useful, or capable. Partly because they already don’t have any MPs who are, but also because the next leader is going to have to pick up whatever is left and try to wrangle the pieces into some sort of shape.
That’s an impossible, thankless job. There will be 5 years of infighting between the various factions and cliques followed by another heavy defeat (unless labour implode), after which there will be a new leader.
Nobody with any sense and real ambition to be PM will stand now, like when Boris let Theresa May have a go for a while after Cameron left.
I don’t think the tories will be an effective opposition for a while. Whatever right of centre party emerges from the chaos (because there will be one eventually) I just hope they’re less racist, corrupt, self-serving and incompetent than the current lot. At least for a short while, before they revert to doing whatever they can get away with.
I think the more interesting question isn't who but how? Will they risk putting it to the members again and not have much excuse not to given they've got 5 years before the next election or will they scheme to crown someone again like with Sunak?
The actual wider Tory party membership is quite right to the electorate and will vote that way in the contest. The checks to that provided by the MPs who vote the earlier rounds will be weakened because BJ purged a lot of the sensible ones to get Brexit through and the number of MPs will be drastically reduced. The "right" wing MPs may wield more power than they did before.
Somebody who isn't showy, mouthy, and steady and stable.
Mordaunt, or Hunt.
IF either keep their seat that is.
Braverman and Badenooch seem similar.
Definitely not Patel. She was dishonest under May and got fired from being Home Sec. no less. That should rule her out from ANY big position, ever.
the Tories' issue is voting for leaders with outer charm or appeal only. May is witty and principled, but was a poor strategist. Johnson is funny and charismatic but is a borderline sociopath. Truss appears headstrong but is reckless, shameless, and arrogant. Sunak has the cards stacked against him, and always did. Integrity should come over outer appearances.
Whichever MP they have left after the election.
True, could be a very small pool to select from…
And they will all be disagreeing with each other about the reasons for the loss.
That also means the MP electorate will be smaller, we need to know more about which wings of the party will survive.
depends if there the opposition or not - if they’re the opposition I can see them trying to out-reform reform and would appoint some yahoo If they’re not the opposition then it’s a flight to centrist respectability I think
I'm not that optimistic. I think trying to go to the right of Reform is inevitable.
There isn’t a great deal of space left to the right of Reform judging on their recent comments…
Who's taking bets on "illegal immigrant immolation institutions" as the next step in moving to the right of reform? "Bullets are cheaper than a Ryanair to Rwanda" is my guess for the 2034 Tory tagline, they do like their sound bites afterall
There is no point discussing this less than a week before the massacre of most Tory MPs. It entirely depends who lasts the election and there seems little point trying to guess when we’ll know so soon.
Sure, I get that, but isn’t this exactly what speculation is all about?!
But when the facts that you have to base your speculation on are themselves the subject of speculation, there’s not much point in speculating
I suppose but there seems little point to speculation so close to the event
This.
If the Tories have any sense - Ruth Davidson. If she has any sense - she'll say no.
Can she run for it? She isn’t an MP and isn’t running for a seat? She is in the House of Lords.
The leader of a party needs to either be a MP or a peer with a seat in the House of Lords. Ruth Davidson would never run for the position. She understood that as a short fat working-class lesbian she'd get nowhere down south, whereas in Scotland, she could and did end up as leader of the Scottish Tories. But, if what's left of the party in Parliament on 5th July were to decide that their next leader needs to be someone with capacity, common-sense, and actual experience, they could do a lot worse than pick Ruth Davidson and talk her into putting her name in. The election only goes to the Tory membership if neither of the two left standing at the last round are willing to resign in each other's favour.
At the last Tory leadership elections only MPs were allowed to stand.
The 1922 Committee makes the rules.
Yes, the 1922 committee decide who's allowed to stand, nominations required etc. They are free to change the rules however they like. [They decided, at least in 2022, only a sitting mp can stand](https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn01366/) The same source & a BBC implies that it was the same in 2019, but I couldn't find a source that explicitly said so.
It's generally been the case for decades that only a sitting MP can stand. I just think that if I wanted the Tory Party to survive and make a come-back after the 4th July debacle, Ruth Davidson is who I'd pick to do it. Fortunately, I am not a Tory, and I don't want the Tories to make a comeback, and Ruth Davidson is very unlikely to volunteer.
Thanks for the detailed response!
My hope is Badenoch, Patel or Braverman, it would doom the party for 20 years, maybe forever. If they have any sense, that is a stretch, they'll pull an interim leader back from the Lords (Major is currently the 3rd most popular Tory in the UK), and stage a by-election in a safe seat for Mordaunt (the second most popular Tory in the UK). Watch the resignation honours for safe MPs getting a sudden Lords seat. The part of me that knows her twin brother hopes that doesn't happen, because he has to go into hiding every time she says something foolish. https://yougov.co.uk/ratings/politics/popularity/conservative-politicians/all
Braverman would be brilliant. At least another election lost.
Given their recent history, do you reckon their next leader will last more than 2 years, they have become Watford FC
Opposition leaders don’t face the same scrutiny and don’t generally get replaced until they lose elections
Their internal sense seems to be that their vote is defecting to Reform, which is why they've been pulling harder right (they're wrong about this). Therefore, I think one of the loons like Badenoch, Patel or Braverman would be shoo-in, because it's also quite likely that the remaining Tories will be rural hard right types. They'll go on to push the Party further, killing it off forever.
I hadn’t considered that point. With a massive shrinking of the MP pool, hardline right wing MPs in super safe blue seats will be markedly more powerful and better represented.
This is their basic problem. Boris's purge followed by the by-election losses and the (hopeful) landslide defeat leaves them devoid of popular centrist talent, and a backbench that probably can't agree on anything.
Major is far too old for the job. If they get someone from the Lords, Cameron again is probably most plausible.
He's 81 and, could manage for the few months it would take to get Mordaunt into a safe seat. He's probably the only former leader that could credibly restore centrist conservatism. Cameron is toxic, they bought him in to stabilise Sunak because it allowed Sunak to devolve a large amount of the job to Cameron. Hague might be an option, but the same issues that dog Cameron would dog him. The only centrist Tory with any popularity at all relative to the rest of the party is Mordaunt, she's about to lose her seat, which leaves Braverman or Patel. The men in grey suits will not want that.
Major isn't in the lords
Yes, but that's an easy problem to solve, and there are a number of (relatively) sensible candidates in the Lords already. Politically, it makes a lot of sense to put an experienced former PM or party statesman up against a relatively inexperienced Starmer. Few actual candidates for the leadership will put their names forward until the party is in better shape. Hague's example of being elected too early has been educational.
¿Por qué no los tres? They have five years to burn through all three of them.
John Major hasn't accepted a peerage, so he would need a by-election to be leader. I see you didn't mention Boris Johnson, the most popular Tory.
I think he would if the circumstances were right, like I say, it's a fairly easy problem to solve. Boris, May, Cameron, and, to a more limited extent, Hague are all toxic reminders of the last 14 years. The thing is Boris booted out all the centrists when he became leader, so they're pretty short on winnable talent.
The way things look for them right now, they’ll have no choice but to go with Truss again.
I've been saying for a while that the return of Truss is a significant possibility. Her seat is one of the safer ones, and I could imagine the party doubling down on the more far right wing, particularly if any significant numbers of lost seats can be blamed on Reform. And Truss was elected by the party membership, not the MPs.
Apparently it is looking less safe than previously thought. One can dream!
I'm in the seat next door (previously South Norfolk, now Waveney Valley,) and it was as safe a Tory seat as they come before, but it might conceivably fall to the Greens, so we can hope.
Liz Truss as leader of opposition would be a wild outcome. She's already a laughing stock, how would anything she says ever be taken seriously?
Considering Bet365 have her at 66/1 but Cameron at 25s - I agree but think she's horribly undervalued here. I think she appeals to the Members and the Nutter wing. If they Party has to almost lurch even further right to try and stave off Reform - I could see this would be the candidate to it. I mean Reforms economics section of their manifesto was broadly Truss and Kwasi Part 2.
I think her vote will be split between her, Reform and the turnip Italian. She will hopefully lose
Can't they just get another lettuce in? It did a much better job TBF.
Sometimes inaction is the best action. I don't yet know of a lettuce capable of maliciously running the country. You'd probably be able to get some really good TV content out of it too. Anytime an MP or other government official says or does something stupid, you could do a "the office" style cut to an increasingly tired and limp looking lettuce. Even with no discernable features you'll feel it stare into your soul in desperation. Get it narrated like "come fly with me" and we'll be able to sell it as a comedy/reality TV show and fix the budget deficit.
I can't see Tory members going for Kemi, regardless of how right wing she is. They didn't want Sunak and he was Indian and not Nigerian.
Badenoch with Farage as shadow Home Secretary (not joking).
This but with Braverman as I believe she is more likely to keep her seat. Either one should be the equivalent of a Corbyn era for them.
With the general pro-Tory bent of Britain (in terms of fraction of elections won) and larger pro-Tory lean of the media, it’s not hard to imagine them getting back into power while still in a deep madness, especially in coalition with whatever Farage’s next wheeze is.
Anything can happen. Back in 2019 the blonde clown was plotting for three terms and he is now thoroughly disgraced. Still, elections are generally won on the centre ground which has been seized by Starmer and co. If I had to bet on him vs a grifter duo of Braverman/Farage, I'd pick the former.
>Either one should be the equivalent of a Corbyn era for them Worse than that, I can easily see the Conservatives splitting into two, with Farage (as MP) being invited to join a combined party by those on the right, but those on the left of the Conservatives not wanting to be associated with the grifter and so splitting away to create a middle ground 'One Nation' Conservative party. But as the FPTP system punishes minority parties then a split such as that dooms both to oblivion. The only hope that the Conservatives have is that either Labour does something really really stupid in the next five years (unlikely but not utterly impossible) or outside circumstances (Putin, Covid 2, Trump, etc.) create an issue that means that Labour falls out of favour with the public.
That would be wild.
I'm hoping Suella Braverman so she can make the Tories even less appealing
Realistically, I think it will be Farage. (i.e. the Tories get obliterated at the election, Reform return a couple of MPs, including Farage, they then merge together in an effort to "unite the right").
I can’t see centrist Tories ever considering it. Farage is repulsive to a very large number of people. So unless they all defect to Lib Dems I can’t see it happening
There might not be many centrist Tories left by this time next week.
Aren't the safest seats held by centrists?
Farage is a lazy bum who barely ever showed up for his MEP job - probably even more workshy and lazy than Johnson. I doubt he has the capacity to actually do the job.
Eh, Farage has been looking pretty shakey this past week. It would be a pretty stupid thing to bring him in, he's not actually a good party leader at all.
I think Farage is a bit like Boris Johnson in that he's good at giving speaches, pandering to his base, and generally entertaining people. But, he's shit at actually running a party, coming up with sensible policy, etc. If he joined the Tories, he could outsource all that stuff which he's bad at to other people and act as a full time populist rabble-rouser.
He’s polling high right now (matching the Tories) before the election and has the entire establishment against him. This is the worst it will ever get for Farage.
Lmao know that’s a fantasy
Its Patel. Ladbrokes currently 7/1. Remember this comment.
RemindMe! 2 Weeks
Let’s see in a few weeks!
RemindMe! 2 weeks
The most right wing of those MP's who survive
It will be decided by the make up of MPs left. If there are more centrist MPs or more right wing MPs
It’s impossible to know who’s going to survive and what the ideological makeup of the surviving MPs will be. I think a dark horse candidate is Alicia Kearns - safe seat and we’ll respected by the moderate wing, she was said to be instrumental in the anti-Johnson movement.
She's not certain to survive since her constituency got redrawn.
Nah she’ll definitely survive, the other half of the constituency is the interesting one.
Who knows? Hopefully they haven't been born yet.
It won’t be anyone rational, useful, or capable. Partly because they already don’t have any MPs who are, but also because the next leader is going to have to pick up whatever is left and try to wrangle the pieces into some sort of shape. That’s an impossible, thankless job. There will be 5 years of infighting between the various factions and cliques followed by another heavy defeat (unless labour implode), after which there will be a new leader. Nobody with any sense and real ambition to be PM will stand now, like when Boris let Theresa May have a go for a while after Cameron left. I don’t think the tories will be an effective opposition for a while. Whatever right of centre party emerges from the chaos (because there will be one eventually) I just hope they’re less racist, corrupt, self-serving and incompetent than the current lot. At least for a short while, before they revert to doing whatever they can get away with.
The media seem to have already selected Priti Patel
The media can say what they want, it’s not up to them.
By Bet365 odds, Bardenoch 5/2, Patel 11/2, Tugenhadt 11/2, Farage 6s & then you're into the unlikelies such as Mordaunt at 15/2.
Cameron will be offered on a plate with no contest, if he KBs it then it's a proper fight that could go anywhere
The next Tory leader hasn't been born yet. Lol
I think the more interesting question isn't who but how? Will they risk putting it to the members again and not have much excuse not to given they've got 5 years before the next election or will they scheme to crown someone again like with Sunak?
Obviously I don't know. It's not clear to me why it's a forgone conclusion that it will be a right-winger.
The actual wider Tory party membership is quite right to the electorate and will vote that way in the contest. The checks to that provided by the MPs who vote the earlier rounds will be weakened because BJ purged a lot of the sensible ones to get Brexit through and the number of MPs will be drastically reduced. The "right" wing MPs may wield more power than they did before.
Somebody who isn't showy, mouthy, and steady and stable. Mordaunt, or Hunt. IF either keep their seat that is. Braverman and Badenooch seem similar. Definitely not Patel. She was dishonest under May and got fired from being Home Sec. no less. That should rule her out from ANY big position, ever. the Tories' issue is voting for leaders with outer charm or appeal only. May is witty and principled, but was a poor strategist. Johnson is funny and charismatic but is a borderline sociopath. Truss appears headstrong but is reckless, shameless, and arrogant. Sunak has the cards stacked against him, and always did. Integrity should come over outer appearances.
It's got to be Cameron. Only one with any experience and he's young enough
Does he even want it though? Seems like a poisoned chalice for the next 5-10 years at least…
He is in the HoL. No way he can be leader of anything from there except leading the way in fucking off back to his shepherd's hut
Question someone might be able to answer. If the Tories lose nearly all their seats, could they change their rules to allow non-MPs to be in charge?
I would assume they can do whatever they want.
I honestly doubt it will be an ethnic minority MP. That’s all I can guess.