‘Six of the best for Tory MPs?’ – Facts4EU.Org’s Brexit rankings of the Tory leadership candidates

With a crunch vote this Wednesday, Tory MPs decide on ‘When six become four’

Montage © Facts4EU.Org 2024

We look at the unlikely democratic process for choosing the Party’s next Leader to replace Sunak

This is the crunch week for four out of the six Tory MPs who are vying to be Party Leader and the UK’s potential next Prime Minister. On Wednesday in a Commons Committee Room, MPs will file in to cast their vote for the next Conservative Party Leader. This is the first decision-making point in the process which started after Rishi Sunak resigned, when two of the six candidates will be eliminated.

Below are the results of our analysis of all six candidates, based on our ‘Brexit criteria’. We present our rankings of the six contenders currently standing to be Leader of the Conservative Party and potentially the country’s next Prime Minister.

This Tory Leadership Contest report covers :-

The Facts4EU.Org Brexit Rankings 2024
Our criteria
The electorates
Current polling
Summary of the process until winner declared

Brexit Facts4EU.Org Summary

The Facts4EU.Org Brexit Rankings 2024

“We have an outright winner. In clear first place is former Home Secretary Priti Patel MP”.

Our criteria for the final ranking involved the following, in order

Voted Leave or Remain in the EU Referendum?
Campaigned for Leave or Remain or were invisible?
Parliamentary voting record since the Referendum
Do they represent our core values of independence, sovereignty, democracy and freedoms?

Background – A reminder of the disgraceful period in Parliament following the Referendum

1. How the candidates voted in the Referendum

All six are MPs in constituencies which voted to leave the EU in 2016. Three of the six voted Remain in 2016 – Jenrick, Stride, and Tugendhat.

2. Mrs May’s sell-out deal with the EU – January – March 2019

28 Tory MPs – “the Spartans” - defied massive, long pressure to persuade them to vote in favour of Mrs May’s sell-out deal with the EU on three occasions, lastly on 29th March 2019. Only one of the six leadership contenders was one of these “Spartans”: Priti Patel. The 28 Spartans’ votes were key to Mrs May’s ultimate failure to push through her sell-out deal. All the other five voted for Mrs May’s deal in every single round of votes, from the first.

3. Remainers take control of the House of Commons order book, March 2019

In March 2019, with the connivance of the arch-Remainer Speaker, John Bercow, Remainer MPs were able to take control of the House of Commons order book on several occasions, when they attempted to get a majority of MPs to approve motions such as UK membership of the EU Customs Union. If the SNP hadn’t voted against, several of these votes would have passed.

Five of the six contenders voted against these proposals. Every MP’s vote was needed. Tom Tugendhat, however, abstained at least twice, firstly on the UK joining the EU Customs Union and secondly, on Nick Boles’ proposal that the UK join a “Common Market 2.0”. The Customs Union vote was defeated by just six votes.

All six voted for the Trade & Cooperation Agreement.

4. Windsor Framework – vote, 22nd March 2023

A key indicator of whether an MP had a fundamental understanding of Brexit is whether he or she voted for the Windsor Framework, which puts part of the UK under EU laws, without representation, and with final jurisdiction lying with the European Court of Justice.

James Cleverly was Foreign Secretary at the time, and his was the ministry under which the Windsor Framework was negotiated.

Only 29 MPs overall voted against, one of them Priti Patel. All other leadership contenders voted in favour. Three of the five were members of the cabinet at the time, and the other two were ministers who attended cabinet – a vote against would probably have required a ministerial resignation.

5. Kemi Badenoch and the retention of EU laws

It was under Ms Badenoch’s ministry that the “sunset clause” for EU retained laws was scrapped. This ran contrary to Rishi Sunak’s promise during his own leadership campaign in the summer of 2022. The sunset clause was supposed to have been triggered automatically at the end of last year. Today we continue to have tens of thousands of EU laws which have not been repealed or changed.

The two electorates

Before we look at the latest opinion polls, it should be made clear that these are irrelevant except insofar as they might influence 61 Tory MPs to a certain extent. Following the 2024 general election there are now only 121 Conservative MPs in total, of whom 60 have already declared their hand by signing the nomination paper for their choice of Leader. Under the rules of the 1922 Committee, 10 nominations were required in order to enter the contest.

The effective ‘electorate’ for the candidates to win over by Wednesday - which will limit the choice of all Conservative Party Members and ultimately decide who is presented to all 48 million potential voters at the next general election - therefore numbers just 61 MPs. The votes starting on Wednesday will eliminate two of the candidates at this stage in the contest, leaving four to fight on and attempt to persuade Party Members at the Conference next month.

Current polling

Amongst Conservative Party Members, Robert Jenrick appears to be the bookies’ favourite, closely followed by Kemi Badenoch. That said, the polls have been extremely variable.

It is said that Priti Patel is popular amongst the party membership, but before that she must get through the first and second rounds of balloting of Tory MPs in order for the members to have a chance to vote for her. At the moment this is not looking very probable. The latest poll has her languishing in 5th place.

Latest poll of party members for the Telegraph :

Robert Jenrick : 36%
Kemi Badenoch : 35%
James Cleverly : 18%
Tom Tugendhat : 15%
Priti Patel : 9%
Mel Stride : 4%

Summary of the process

The final result will be declared in a House of Commons Committee Room by Bob Blackman MP, Chairman of the 1922 Committee of backbench Conservative MPs, on 02 November, 2024. Ahead of that, here are the stages of the contest.

04 Sept : Voting starts in Round One, to be completed no later than 11 Sept
At this point the six become five, then four
29 Sept-02 Oct : Each of the (by now four) candidates will speak at the Party Conference
03-10 Oct : Two further ballots of Conservative MPs will reduce the four down to three and then to two
10-31 Oct : Ballot of all Conservative Party Members on the choice of two candidates presented to them by the MPs

Why do political parties struggle to have a simple democratic ballot of their memberships?

The final part of the contest in late October is the first opportunity for Party Members to have any say in their new Leader – and to have any say in who will ostensibly be their candidate to be the next Prime Minister.

Until then, only Tory MPs have any involvement. In the end Conservative Party Members will be given only two candidates to choose from, as approved by a small number of MPs. It is of course possible, as sometimes happens, that rather than be humiliated one of the two candidates will pull out before the members have a chance to vote, thereby leading to the effective ‘annointing’ of the sole remaining candidate.

Observations

Both Facts4EU.Org and CIBUK.Org remain non-partesan. Our review of the six candidates for Conservative Leader was undertaken purely on the basis of their records on the Referendum decision to leave the European Union, the subsequent moves in Parliament to negate this, and the likelihood (or not) of a firm commitment to Brexit being delivered in full if they win power.

On this basis, there is only one candidate who has a good record, and that is Priti Patel.

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We’re funded by donations from you – the public

The content :-

Unique, original, well-researched reports
No ‘re-hashing’ of articles you’ll read elsewhere
Based on official data, statements and reports, analysed by us
Transparent sources : Whether it’s the EU Commission, the ONS, or the IMF, we state where we obtained our data

NOTICE : Facts4EU has now scaled back to publishing 5 days-a-week

For over eight years we have worked seven days-a-week. As far as we are aware we are the only organisation of our type to have done this. We are grateful to those of our readers who have made donations but sadly the level of our funding is now such that we must make it stretch for as long as we can. This means team members taking other paid work and reducing our output to five days-a-week.

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[ Sources: UK Parliament voting record | Telegraph poll | Conservative Democratic Organisation ] Politicians and journalists can contact us for details, as ever.

Brexit Facts4EU.Org, Mon 02 Sept 2024

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Reader Comments 10

1. Sparky , Monday, September 02, 2024, 06:58:

The Cons are unlikely to win the next election but may have a chance in the one after, 2032 to 2034. Their reputation has been so badly damaged by Brexit and the Chaos of the last 8 years. The next leader is unlikely to be the next Cons PM. By 2034 BRINO will be firmly established so who would be the best candidate to rebuild the party and prepare for the possibly taking over under BRINO. Latest polling about how people feel about Brexit from Statista is 54% think wrong to leave 33% right to leave. YouGov is similar.

2. Gazzablack , Monday, September 02, 2024, 07:19:

1, sparkless
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You're testiculating again Hiroo.

3. NH , Monday, September 02, 2024, 09:16:

I am surprised Robert Jenrick voted "Remain" and for the "Windsor Framework". He resigned over immigration and has committed to leave the ECHR. Seems like you can not trust any of them to tell the truth.
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1. Sparky, "Latest polling about how people feel about Brexit"
If you actually read the YouGov polling that is not what it says. In it's list of "Most Important Issues" our relationship with the EU is in 10th place with only 7% of people considering it to be important. All of the major issues (Health, Cost of Living, Immigration, Economy) would be harmed by the UK rejoining the EU.
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The Labour party have been elected by 20% of the electorate, have stated "things are going to get worse" and have not yet produced a budget. You seem to believe that this gives you sufficient information to predict the outcome of the next election !

4. Northern Muppet , Monday, September 02, 2024, 10:29:

I wouldn't trust a single one of them!
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Given the fact that Priti is the only one who has any credible claim to have been in any way supportive of the letter and the spirit of Brexit, she will certainly be eliminated before any decision gets to tory party members.
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Just like after their drubbing by bliar, the tories are failing completely to see what the problem is and was. Unlike then, there is an alternative now which I think will see the tory vote diminish even further in the future.
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And sparkless, your unwavering, unthinking belief in another layer of (useless and currupt) government is pitiful, to say the least! Though do keep it up - it's always quite amusing!

5. Ashley Great Britain , Monday, September 02, 2024, 10:41:

The beginning of 2019 was when the May government made their move to overthrow the EU Ref result and deliver a false withdrawal from the EU.
Thank the gods that didn't work, But it then moved to the rest of the remainers and John Bercow continuing to ensure we were left with the Windsor framework and a style of Brino.
If we have left the EU then why are we still part of the ECHR, Why are thousands of EU laws still on our statute books, And why are Labour now planning new treaties with them.
After all that's happened it certainly looks like the remainer Labour government are jumping at the chance to kill Brexit.
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Priti Patel would be best as con's leader by far but as with reform uk and Brexit we just don't get what we want.
We still have 5 years of increasing damage and despair in the pipeline from Labour.
So far Labour are behaving exactly as millions expected.

6. Old Albion , Monday, September 02, 2024, 12:02:

Unlike you 'Sparky' I'm far from convinced that Labour will last one full term let alone two.

7. Have You Wondered. , Monday, September 02, 2024, 13:08:

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Westminster needs an enema .
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If when you look over the last 40 yrs of tribal politics and to where it has led to the present day with the UK ‘silverware’ sold off and asset stripped, rife uncontrolled corruption in Westminster, lies and incompetence and the laughable PMQ's 'Punch and Judy' show of tribal politics sustained to keep a party in power and disregarding the prime duty of protecting the welfare and security of the electorate in every respect.
We do need a complete new regime change.
.

8. Have You Wondered. , Monday, September 02, 2024, 13:12:

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The UK has all the hallmarks of a despotic nation?
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Why did we the electorate let it go wrong?
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Circumventing parliamentary procedure on WF Allowance.
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The last 40yrs of tribal politics that has seen the UK assets stripped by the oligarchs, the silverware given away and rendered the political scene to a third world corrupt nation with the liars, greed, cronyism and corruption, and so it continues.
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Political parties tactics denigrating and slurring each other. 3rd rate (literally) actors and political plants, biased media presentations.
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Releasing prisoners denying the electorate their security and denying victims justice.
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Obviously, some voters do not count in UK democracy.
This 2024 election proves the fundamentally undemocratic voting system.
9m votes for Labour 411 seats
4m votes for Reform 5 seats.
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Parachuting un-elected individuals into the Lords to enable a favoured position in govt. and the cronyism of Lords appointments.
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Locking people up without trial (Assange)
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Not fulfilling, indeed countering the electorates democratic referendum mandate.
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The hypocrisy of the big speeches in front of a lectern where the winners spout the historic words that they will meet everyone's needs, security and prosperity along with eradicating past mis-justices, learn the lessons, that in reality will be the antithesis and the gullible of the electorate believe it.
(In evidence: Covid, Grenfall, Thalidomide, Insufficient care for our forces, Post office, MRSA, Hemophiliacs, Windrush et al. add your own)
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This, the once proud nation that fought for democracy and justice that it developed and spread around the world.
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Why did we the electorate let it go wrong?
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9. terence patrick hewett , Monday, September 02, 2024, 16:56:

Whenever the next GE is, what's certain is that the Labour Party will be brought even lower than the despicable Tory Party: and then the fun will start, because the corrupt and rotten Blob ain't going quietly. It's going to be very, very violent, before the detritus is cleared out.

10. Sparky , Monday, September 02, 2024, 19:08:

3 NH. That's why I said YouGov is similar. one of its Trackers shows to the question about the benefits of Brexit. 51% felt negatives outweighed negatives only 17% felt positives outweighed negatives. Not many polls exist about Brexit, not many interested.

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