Tory MP Accuses New 1922 Chair Of Lacking "Proper Mandate"

Conservative MP Mark Francois angrily confronted the newly elected chair of the 1922 Committee Bob Blackman in a parliamentary bar on Tuesday night, accusing Blackman of not having “a proper mandate”.

The election to choose the successor to Sir Graham Brady ended in chaos after several senior Conservative MPs were excluded from voting after showing up too late.

Conservative MPs seemingly received mixed messages about when voting would finish. Some believed it would stop at 6pm and arrived close to that time, but were told it was too late to cast a vote when they turned up.

In the end, Blackman, the MP for Harrow East, received 61 votes, while the other candidate Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown received 37.

Later that night, Francois confronted Blackman in parliament's Strangers Bar, a Thameside bar used by MPs, staffers and journalists, and told him, "people were disenfranchised, including the shadow chancellor [Jeremy Hunt] and Father of the House [Edward Leigh]."

“Honest to God, do it again,” Francois said. “Otherwise, people will say you haven’t got a proper mandate.”

He added: “I’m sick and tired of all the bloody shenanigans. You just have to read The Plot, this is completely bent."

Francois was referencing former Cabinet minister Nadine Dorries' book about the downfall of former prime minister Boris Johnson. Francois was a keen Johnson supporter and backed his bid to return to No 10 in the late-2022 Conservative party leadership contest.

“I’ve said it in front of witnesses, re-run it. In 23 years I’ve never known anything like it. Seriously I’d re-run it and do it again next week”, he said.

Francois, who was re-elected the MP for Rayleigh and Wickford at the General Election, brandished a copy of the Daily Mail and a printed out