The remarkable thing about the Tory leadership election is how long it has been coming. When Theresa May blew the party’s majority in the 2017 general election, few imagined that it would be two years before she quit as leader. What kept her in place was not a lack of Tory ruthlessness but a failure to agree on who should replace her.
A lack of consensus is the defining feature of this contest. No candidate is pulling ahead in the endorsements, and no one has the backing of most of the cabinet. Instead, the race is as fractured as it is crowded.
There are two sides to this election: full-on Brexit vs the cabinet. On the Brexit side, Boris Johnson is consolidating his position. He has the highest number of MPs backing him and is fighting this contest in propitious circumstances, as he is the Tories’ most obvious answer to Nigel Farage and the Brexit party. He has also shown a discipline that Westminster doesn’t normally associate with him. Rather than indulging in publicity stunts, he has kept working away on the MPs whose support he needs.
So far, Johnson has kept a low profile, eschewing media interviews. This has frustrated his rivals. They hope that two televised hustings will flush him out and create enough drama for the momentum to shift. But if he is 20 votes or more ahead of Dominic Raab in the opening round, he would be as certain as any candidate can be in such a crowded field of making it through to the final round. One of the cabinet candidates is even considering endorsing the former foreign secretary before he reaches the final two. Parties always overcorrect when picking a successor, and Boris the buccaneer is the opposite of May the vicar’s daughter.
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