And then there were five. Rishi Sunak, Penny Mordaunt, Liz Truss, Kemi Badenoch and Tom Tugendhat – one of these names will become Britain’s next prime minister. Ahead of tonight’s Channel 4 debate there’s much excited chatter about who will survive the final rounds of MPs’ voting and be presented to the final two. With more than 100 backers, Sunak looks set to make it to the membership: the question is who will face him?
After Mordaunt bagged second yesterday with 83 votes, there’s now increasing concern among some right-wing Tories that a candidate from their wing of the party won’t make it to the last two. In such circumstances then it’s hardly surprising to hear calls for a pact between Liz Truss (who got 64 votes) and Kemi Badenoch (49 votes). And it’s even less of a surprise that it’s Lord Frost – the former Brexit supremo – making such calls in public, splashing today’s Telegraph with demands that Badenoch quit to ‘unite the right.’
Frost has been something of an attack dog for Team Truss this campaign, savaging Mordaunt on TalkTV yesterday and now turning on Badenoch today. He claims: ‘It is now time for pragmatism. I urge Kemi to stand down in return for a serious job in a Truss administration.’ It comes after Mark Francois wrote to all members of the European Research Group, urging them to support the Foreign Secretary, and Suella Braverman backed Truss after losing in the second round. For their worth, the Badenoch team is insisting they won’t stand down.
All this hasn’t gone down too well with some MPs who dislike being told how to vote in a private ballot. Mr S hears of some disquiet on the ‘right’ about the way in which older Brexiteers have tried to dictate the way younger colleagues should vote. After Mark Francois messaged the ERG WhatsApp group to back Truss, he faced a backlash from other members. Lee Anderson wrote ‘sorry I didn’t realise this was a Whipping Group’ adding he was ‘really disappointed in this ‘ as ‘I suspect colleagues will make their own minds up based on what they feel is best for our party’ and ‘the TV debates may well tell a different story.’ Andrew Lewer pointed out that ‘Kemi actually supported Brexit’ and that she ‘represents the best chance for many of us of holding our seats.’
There’s an interesting generational, rather than ideological split here, with MPs from the 2017 and 2019 intakes proportionately more likely to back Kemi than Liz. And judging from Badenoch’s list of declared public backers, it’s not at all clear that they would follow her in backing Truss, if she chose to do so. Frost’s attacks could even inadvertently rally support for Mordaunt and Badenoch. The latter is polling as much more popular with the membership in various surveys, as unscientific as they are. And some in the Commons feel discomfort at a peer in the Lords making pronouncements about their colleagues. As Simon Hoare, an MP on the left of the party, put it succinctly:
Who the hell is an unelected, failed Minister to tell any MP what to do? For some unknown reason David Frost perpetually thinks we give a flying xxxx what he thinks. We don’t and we won’t.
Guess we will find out next week…
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