Veteran Tory Wants Conservative Leadership Contests To Be More "Transparent" To Stop "Fibbing And Skulduggery"

Former Conservative MP John Penrose has called for MP voting rounds in Tory leadership contests to be made public to help the party stop choosing "problematic leaders". 

This, he said, would make the Conservatives less likely of repeating the mistake of choosing a leader who will lead them to a “hurricane awful set of election results”.

As the Tories face their first period in opposition for more than 14 years, there is a debate within the party over which direction to go in in order to win again. The first question facing them is who will replace Rishi Sunak as leader, as he announced his intention to stand down following the party's historic defeat to Labour on 4 July.

It remains unclear when the contest will formally begin. Once it does, under current rules Conservative MPs will vote in a preliminary secret ballot, which takes place in rounds to whittle down the initial list of nominees. Once the list is narrowed to two candidates, the vote goes to the membership to then decide between the final two. 

Penrose was the Conservative MP for Weston-super-Mare until the election, when he lost to Labour’s Daniel Aldridge by 4,409 votes. The former MP was also previously the United Kingdom Anti-Corruption Champion in the Home Office between 2017 and 2022.

He told PoliticsHome the MP ballot should be made open and transparent, rather than keeping who votes for who secret.

“The process has given us a couple of real problematic leaders over the course of the last couple of years,” he said.

“That's one of the key reasons why we just had this hurricane awful set of election results. It's really important to get the process absolutely chiselled and working the way it's supposed to.”

He argued that while most MPs know who most of their