Boris is gone: the leadership contest now begins

In the end, the Prime Minister was damaged irreparably before he resigned on Thursday. The confidence vote wounded him. Then two by-election defeats revealed that people were voting tactically against the Tories. A party that tolerated Boris Johnson because he was a vote-winner now concluded he was an electoral liability: rebellions followed and then (finally) his resignation. But the Conservatives are stuck confronting a basic question: what next?

The Tories are caught in a trap. One influential Tory MP who voted for Johnson in the no-confidence ballot told me, with a mixture of exhaustion and despair: ‘Please God, make it stop.’ That sums up the mood. The Tories had been hoping for some kind of divine intervention because they do not know what else to do. They knew they wanted Johnson gone – but hadn’t much discussed what happens next.

But over the last few days, the outlines of the next leadership campaign have become clear. According to the Conservative Home survey of Tory activists, which has an impressive record in leadership contests, Ben Wallace is the new favourite. This is a sign of the respect in which Wallace’s leadership on Ukraine is held. A Scots Guards officer who has also served in the Scottish parliament, he is seen to be good in a crisis. With war in Europe and inflation worldwide, Tory members expect plenty of crises.

But even the closest students of the Tory party would struggle to tell you what Wallace thinks about most domestic issues. He has been a Northern Ireland minister, security minister and now Defence Secretary. He has never held an economic or public services post and is not given to making wide-ranging speeches, so his views on these questions remain fairly unknown. Those who are already promoting Wallace tend to be figures whose primary interests are military.