Today’s third round of MP voting in the Tory leadership race has given James Cleverly an almost perfect result.
Not only did he have a massive uplift of 18 MPs to 39, but with the 20 votes of the eliminated Tom Tugendhat now in play, it looks like he can afford to ‘choose’ the opponent he will face in the final two.
Robert Jenrick has lost ground, sliding two votes to 31, while Kemi Badenoch has added two to reach 30. It does not take a genius to work out what Cleverly’s team is likely to do next.
It looks like he can afford to ‘choose’ the opponent he will face in the final two
Should he get gain the support of even half of the backers of his fellow centrist Tom Tugendhat – a modest bar to clear – it will put him far over the 41 votes needed to guarantee making the final. That will allow him to indulge in some back of house jiggery-pokery.
He can then safely and secretly ‘lend’ half a dozen core supporters to Jenrick in the final round of MP voting, to make sure he faces a wounded opponent whose vessel is taking on water.
By freezing out his Essex neighbour Badenoch, Cleverly would instantly become red hot favourite to be the next leader of the opposition. If, on the other hand, he simply seeks to maximise his own vote then there is every chance of him having to face-off against Badenoch. And all the polling of grassroots Tory members suggests he would lose to her.
So while it may sound far-fetched to some, I am afraid Badenoch’s goose may be cooked so long as Cleverly has the nerve to play a hardball game: using his momentum and centrist credentials to win over at least ten Tugendhat supporters, loaning five or six trusted ‘core’ MPs to Jenrick, finishing on 45 plus votes and seeing Jenrick edge out Badenoch by something like 39 votes to 36.
Is there a risk of such a gambit blowing up in his face? Of course. But not all that much of one. With the reduced MP numbers voting in this race, Machiavellian machinations have become much easier to calibrate. And the chances of any current supporters deserting his camp unbidden are very low given the glow that now surrounds his campaign.
For Jenrick to have gone backwards between rounds two and three will make people suspicious should he make the final run-off. But being suspicious and having proof that it’s a fix are two very different things.
After she was eliminated from the contest of 2022 because colleagues lacking in imagination judged her lacking in sufficient seniority, it would be a bitter pill for Badenoch to swallow were she eliminated this time on the grounds of being too much of a threat to the frontrunner.
Had she been more enthusiastic in her mood music around the idea of leaving the ECHR then she would probably have prevented the Jenrick bandwagon gaining momentum in the first place. That would have made her a final round shoo-in.
Instead, she decided she wanted to win on her own terms, while leaving herself maximum room for manoeuvre in the long term – a principled and laudable approach and one that may yet be vindicated. If she can take MPs from Jenrick’s column on the grounds that she is now the only right-winger with much of a chance of beating Cleverly, then she may make the final after all.
But if it turns out that she has failed the basic requirement of any politician – learning how to count – then a great opportunity for the Tories to be led by an epoch-maker will have been lost.
Comments