Jockeying Begins For Leadership Of Battered Tory Party

After a damning defeat at the polls yesterday, the long rebuild of the Conservative Party can finally begin.

But with just 121 Tory MPs left and deep divisions over the future direction of the party, who will they pick to lead them following the darkest days of their worst electoral defeat and, perhaps one day, back to electoral success?

The Conservative Party board are expected to meet on Monday to discuss the potential terms of a leadership contest. It is the board, in consultation with the future chair of the Conservatives’ 1922 committee, who will make a plan for an interim leader and any Tory leadership race.

Several Conservative MPs told PoliticsHome they would prefer a longer leadership election – taking six months through the summer, party conference season and concluding in December. It would allow time for candidates who are less well-known to build their profile, like David Cameron did in 2005, and give time to get through tough conversations on what the party's future will look like.

“This summer will be a blood letting of recriminations so it is not sensible to have that at the same time as leadership,” one Tory MP warns. “No one will listen to us for six months. We then have two years to rebuild and a year to set out our stall before Starmer calls the next election.”

Although there is a need to move on from this all-time low in the party’s history, choosing the right leader will be crucial if they are to take the fight to Labour in 2029. 

In his resignation speech, Sunak promised to stay on as interim leader until arrangements for his successor are in place. “Him staying as interim leader until the permanent is crowned is the responsible thing to do,” one senior Tory MP says. “It's going to be really miserable,