Tory Leadership race

Our future PM?

I seem to remember one Boris Johnson calling for a general election at the time of Brown’s appointment.

Of course the Brexit Party members wouldn’t have a say in the leadership would they? (As it has no members.) That makes it a dictatorship.

lemongrove you said noonecomplained at the time about Brown taking over - plenty of people did. It may be party rules, which can, and have been be changed, but it’s not “democratic” in any sense, apart from it follows that parties’ rules. Still, this is just semantic isn’t it? You obviously think it’s democracy when it suits.

I keep looking at it from both sides - as a member when as you say you put in the slog and should have a say or as an MP when you know the candidates really well probably and have to work with them. I think I read somewhere that this is the first time a government has changed PMs with the membership actually voting - in all previous cases I believe it never had to go to the membership. Does that make this different in an important way?

The membership of the political party are involved because they are the ones who do the foot slog to get the party into government. They need to have faith in the leader to do that.
It is our way that if the PM stands down another is elected by the party in Government. Usually it does result in a fairly quick election but then you have to factor in issues like the world financial crisis (with Brown) and Brexit (with Boris or Hunt). I would dearly love a GE but sometimes it just doesn't work at that time. My bet is the earliest will be next Spring. However, I think if it is Boris he will want to go to full term He'll never get another one.

This may sound very naive but here goes - why do the membership get involved at all in choosing the leader of the Parliamentary party? Why isn’t it just the MPs? And could you have someone else as leader of the party outside of parliament who is elected by the members? This sounds so simple, there must be a fundamental flaw in it.

I was invited to join a moderately exclusive Conservative club the other day. Having just given my views on Johnson and my local Tory MP, I was somewhat surprised, to say the least. Perhaps he hoped to convert me, but more likely it was just a lazy assumption.

I declined gracefully.

Whatever anyone thinks of the current process, it certainly beats hands down how Douglas Home ended up as PM.

'Tis my view that too many posters have been sucking too many lemons????????????????

Well it would be good to see the Tory party tackle this. Maybe limit voting rights to those who have been a member for over two years? At least imvestigate.

Complaining and not liking the way it’s done, doesn’t make it undemocratic crystal.

So much for democracy in action maizied eh?

Plenty of people did complain at the time about Brown etc taking over, I did for one as did many critics if you did but bother to look at the records.

Oh look, further to my post about Grieve, see what I've found on twitter:

twitter.com/LeaveEUOfficial/status/1141781094653726725

For those who refuse to follow links, this is what the first tweet says:

Start

Leave.EU
‏
Verified account

@LeaveEUOfficial
Follow Follow @LeaveEUOfficial

Through our Blue Wave campaign we've added some 25,000 members to the @Conservatives' books - it's now time to make our voices heard and put Boris in Number 10.

For Brexiteers, it's win-win. Either Boris delivers or the Brexit Party crushes the Tories at the next election! ?

finish

Entryism in action, I think

Ginny42 and any other posters moaning about the same thing....it’s how it has always been done, if the leader needs to change.Remember Brown taking over from Blair and John Major taking over from Margaret Thatcher.
I don’t remember anyone complaining at those times.
It’s entirely democratic and just because you don’t happen to like it, doesn’t make it any less so.

GG54 ....a brilliant reposte!

I'm so angry with the Tories for putting us in this position. First the Referendum and now Johnson or Hunt to represent this citizens of this country without a GE.

The bigger question is which of the two can win the GE when it comes? When things do fall apart is Johnson going to admit blame like he admitted blame for his blunder which sees Nazanin's prison sentence extended. Hunt might.

We are now in the hands of the Tory membership. How is it democratic that the unrepresentative few can side-step the view of the entire electorate?

trisher
With your comment in mind, let's hope Johnson shafts Hunt then, shall we?

Jeremy Hunt is MP for my area and is quite unassuming and vanilla.
I've met him twice at Rotary but he's not at all charismatic, whereas I think BJ is quite the opposite and that is the attraction.

I'm sorry I know it\s bad taste but I can't help it. The 2 candidates for Tory leadership are now someone with a slang name for penis and someone whose surname has often been mispronounced as a very rude name for a woman's anatomy. A Johnson and a Hunt. Just about sums the whole debacle up.

Twitter

Attention, peasants. Either Boris Johnson or Jeremy Hunt will be your next Prime Minister. Now return to your work stations.

Anyone?

Too embarrassing to admit to that??

So, who actually admires him then?