Conservative membership deciding new pm

[ChampagneCamping]

This is bonkers, the conservative membership cannot be trusted to decide who will be PM. They opted for Liz Truss last time, with her extreme conservative values. The country needs someone less extreme and with good morals

I agree it’s up to the party to set the rules, Labour does too.

It stunned me that the Conservative members couldn't see last time that Sunak was the least bad option. Truss - and the other candidates- were clearly unfit to be PM. So if they are involved goodness knows who'll win this time. Electoral madness to put Johnson back in, but it's like they don't even care.

Depressing! My parents live on a Scottish island with an abysmal ferry service. This is pretty much entirely down to SNP mismanagement (to put it mildly) of the commissioning process for the new ferry, which is now years and years behind where it should have been. This is a local issue but a big one for the thousands of people affected and has had a bad effect on the island's businesses and tourist trade. Taken together with their refusal to listen to reason on gender ideology, it doesn't fill me with confidence, but then most political parties now seem to be full of mediocre self-important people who couldn't run a piss up in a brewery.

He may represent a (wealthy and rural) northern constituency, but Sunak is not a northerner!!!

And 'North' =/= 'Red Wall'

Sunak's constituency is about as far from being Red Wall as you get.

The thing I don’t really get is people complaining that the membership chooses - that’s the system. I don’t know how the Labour Party works but assume they have a similar system, and other parties.

Because it's a bad policy, and means we end up with a small and unaccountable group of people choosing the PM in situations like this. The beauty of MPs choosing instead is that they're all accountable. Labour policy does indeed provide for this now as well, although it didn't last time they changed leader when in government. That doesn't make it any less bad an idea.

The membership are not involved this time. It's just MPs.

Boris is up in front of the privileges committee in Nov and if they find he knowingly mislead parliament- very possible - he would be expected to resign. If he's suspended for 10 sitting days, he could be subject to a recall petition, triggering a by-election, which he would lose.

Boris is in a perilous position as far as Parliament is concerned, whether he really is guilty or was stitched up. Letting members choose is not a good idea as Labour found out when Corbyn was elected. So the Tories found out when Truss was elected. Whatever you might think of MPs they are probably the best people to decide who is the best leader as they are best placed.

Lol at Rishi Sunak being a northerner

Last time more MPs voted for Sunak but Truss got the membership vote

This time it might be aligned anyway, we’ll see

I agree that it is better for the MPs to choose - not necessarily because they are best placed to choose in all circumstances, but if you can’t get your side to vote with you, you can’t get anything through.

Hopefully the MPs know the individuals better than we do on the outside, and know their capabilities.

It would be better in this situation if the MPs could get together and back just one candidate and agree to stop complaining publicly. But some just can’t do that.
Whether it’s Roger Gale saying he’ll quit the whip if Boris is PM or others slagging off Rishi, it’s all unhelpful and should be kept behind closed doors IMO.

all this washing dirty laundry in public and on Twitter, etc. just trashes the party.

Maybe MintJulia is on the Isle of Wight?

The latest projections are that Labour will make about 10 gains off the SNP, mostly in the Forth / Clyde area.

The SNP are just a bunch of tartan Blairites anyway.

There was talk on R4 this morning that BJ is likely to get well in excess of the 100 votes.

But I'm not sure he'd want the job.

He's getting used to living a life out of scrutiny, making money.
The tories will lose next time anyway, so then he'd become the PM who won a massive majority, fucked it up, came back and fucked it up again by losing the majority. There are no good optics there and BJ loves optics.

@TomPinch

Well let's meet back here post GE & we'll see.
I doubt it very very much that Labour will make any inroad in scotland.

As for the snp being blairites. Now you're just being silly. I left the Labour Party because of Blair.
As did Jimmy Reid. He was a member of the snp until the day he died. Was he a blairite too in your opinion.

I agree, I think he may well decide not to run.

hHe pulled out of a leadership campaign before when Governor withdrew his support & it looked less likely that he’d win.

If he stands, I think he’ll win, but then he’ll be PM at a time of probably austerity. He’d have to make a lot of decisions that aren’t aligned with his beliefs and policies.

he may well decided he’s best of out of it.

equally he does seem to have remarkably thick skin and go for it anyway!

Really re not running?

He’s flying back for it and has said something about national interest

I'm not sure bojo does things in the national interest.

It’s more about whether he’s running even if you disagree with the statement

I’d say it indicates he is keen

Not sure where people are getting he’s not?

What's crazy is, that from a Tory perspective, what they really really need is a unifying candidate. Someone safe, modest, seen an a boat steadier. Someone who will steady the markets, restore confidence and do a good job against equally steady Kier Starmer. They all agree on this. And yet they are still arguing about it!! Surely even the most ardent supporter can see that Johnson is NOT a unifying candidate!!

There is no way in a million years they'll have all agreed on a candidate by Monday. Even if one candidate emerges and becomes PM by Monday night, there's no WAY the party is going to rally behind them and stop bickering. Can you imagine Nadine Dorries and Jacob Rees-Mogg falling in quietly behind a Sunak premiership?! Alternatively if it's Johnson there will be MP's quitting and triggering by-elections!!!

They literally can't help themselves. They are totally power-crazed - at the cost of the country's best interests.

I have given up and will wait to see the fallout and the inevitable General Election that will surely have to follow yet more open squabbling.

Well all we actually know is that he is 'flying back' and he has a campaign going led it would seem by JRM and ND the usual fan club. There haven't been any official statements have there?

I don’t think any of them have formally declared.

I’m wondering why people say he’s not keen though, he’s seems pretty eager

I don’t think the grey men will allow him to stand, and I don’t think they’ll risk allowing a membership vote. They’re just going through the motions now to avoid being accused of being anti-democratic. But the arms of the candidates will be quietly twisted and they’ll pull out at the last minute like they did when May took over.

At oeast, I bloody hope that’s what will happen.

I agree that he is keen to be PM again, and rumours suggest he is ending his holiday early and coming home.

but I wonder if in a quiet moment he might reflect on the realities of the current situation and think ‘I actually don’t want to be associated with all of the difficulties coming along the track’

One thing you can say about him is he’s a disrupter.
Does the party/country/etc. need that right now?

He’s unpredictable.
He’s influential.
He likes to win.
He likes to be popular.
can he balance all of that with economic/geopolitical/energy supply/etc. crises?