The decisive vote for Brexit has propelled the country into uncharted, uncertain and unforgiving waters. One inevitable and eminently foreseeable consequence was the immediate announcement by the Prime Minister of his resignation. Despite the protestations of some Brexiteers, if David Cameron had not chosen to walk the plank he would have soon faced a mutiny, which would have ended with the same result. Power drains quickly, and within hours attention at Westminster shifted to the likely contenders to be the new captain of the ship of state.
The fact that the man widely tipped as Cameron’s successor so rapidly followed him overboard will go down as one of the most spectacular career implosions in British political history. In what should have been his moment of triumph, having led the Leave campaign to victory, Boris Johnson appeared to blink at the magnitude of what he had done. His prevarications over which way to jump at the outset of the campaign had led to the charge of opportunism, and his hesitancy in the aftermath reinforced doubts amongst some Brexiteers about his commitment to the cause, at the very time he felt the full ire of Remainers around Cameron keen to avenge what they saw as his betrayal. But the fatal blow was delivered by his key lieutenant in the Leave campaign, Michael Gove, who declared that ‘I have come, reluctantly, to the conclusion that Boris cannot provide the leadership or build the team for the task ahead’, and instead dramatically threw his own hat into the ring. Having brought the house of cards crashing down, Johnson collected his few remaining chips and dealt himself out of the next hand.
The two maxims of Conservative Party leadership elections are that they are notoriously unpredictable, and that the early frontrunner rarely ever wins. Only a week in, the present contest has fulfilled both. One thing we can safely predict is that this battle will be dominated by the Brexit issue. Of the five candidates, three (Liam Fox, Michael Gove, and Andrea Leadsom) campaigned to leave the European Union, while the other two, Stephen Crabb and Theresa May sided with Remain. Of the latter pair, Crabb was the most vocal in his support for the Remain campaign, and he also faces some awkward questions about his attitude towards homosexuality, which may deter some Cameron-ite modernisers who might otherwise have been tempted to opt for a next generation candidate making a pitch for One Nation territory. It is inconceivable that the parliamentary party will put two Remainers forward to the ballot of party members, and with momentum building behind the Home Secretary, Crabb looks like an outside bet at best.
Following the withdrawal of Johnson, Theresa May is now the clear favourite for the leadership – a position she can only hope she hasn’t assumed too early in the race. She already has the declared support of some 75 MPs, and today received a front-page endorsement from the Daily Mail. Her status as the longest-serving Home Secretary for over a century garners genuine respect amongst parliamentary colleagues, and her reputation as a serious and steadfast figure may chime with the party’s mood at this time. Having positioned herself as a somewhat reluctant Remainer, declaring strongly that ‘Brexit means Brexit’, and enlisting the leading out campaigner Chris Grayling as the chair of her campaign, May will hope to move the debate on from that of the referendum campaign to focus on the shape of the Brexit to come. She is clearly now the candidate to beat. Nonetheless, her status as a Remainer, however reluctant, could well prove to be a hindrance in the final ballot of party members, who voted overwhelmingly to leave the EU. May’s main task in the coming weeks will be to convince party members that she can deliver the type of Brexit they want to see, particularly in relation to ending the free movement of people and significantly reducing immigration. Her persistent failure to reduce immigration as Home Secretary will no doubt come under intense scrutiny from her opponents.
The three Brexit candidates all have impeccably Eurosceptic credentials. Michael Gove is clearly the senior figure, having served in the Cabinet at the Departments of Education and Justice. He is also regarded as one of the sharpest minds in the Parliamentary Conservative Party, and was a key architect alongside David Cameron and George Osborne in the Conservative modernisation project. However, his decision to campaign to leave the EU infuriated the Prime Minister and Chancellor, and his brutal assassination of Boris has caused shockwaves from which he may struggle to recover. Accusations of ‘treachery’ abound, and reports suggest former Boris supporters are shifting to Leadsom, while others such as the unfortunate Nadhim Zahawi, who went into bat for Boris on the Today programme just a couple of hours before he left the race, have now declared for May. With such a febrile atmosphere, Gove has an awful lot of ground to make up with the PCP, and little time to do it. He must also surely be hamstrung by his own repeated colourful declarations of his own inadequacy for the top job.
Liam Fox also has Cabinet level experience at Defence, but had to resign over his business relationship with his former flatmate and best man, Adam Werritty. He remains, however, a senior and respected backbencher, and a straight-talking long-time ‘outer’. But having stood in the 2005 leadership election he looks a little like yesterday’s candidate, and so far has only attracted a small number of backers, largely from the older, traditionalist wing of the PCP.
Andrea Leadsom is the most junior candidate in the race, having never sat at the Cabinet table. First elected to Parliament in 2010, she served as a junior minister at the Treasury for a year before assuming the position of Minister of State for Energy in May 2015. However, she was widely credited with having a good referendum campaign, and performed strongly in the EU TV debate. There are already signs that momentum is gathering behind Leadsom as the leading Brexit candidate, with a strong endorsement appearing in the Telegraph today from former Cabinet minister Owen Paterson, who pointedly claimed that there is ‘One woman who understands out means out’. What might count against her (and in Theresa May’s favour) is the relatively short timescale of the campaign. The first ballot of MPs takes place on Tuesday, to be followed by further ballots on Thursdays and Tuesdays until only two candidates remain. The final two will then have barely two months to put their case to the party membership, before the postal vote closes on 8 September. The new Prime Minister will be unveiled to the nation the following day.
At this juncture, it would be a brave man who would bet against our next Prime Minister being a woman.
Richard Hayton is Associate Professor of Politics at the University of Leeds. He tweets @Richard_Hayton.
Image: Defence Images CC BY-NC-ND
