There’s much speculation about who will be the two MPs chosen by the Tory party to fight it out for leader, but there is less dispute about the candidate who looks set to get knocked out on Tuesday when voting actually starts on Tuesday. Barring an unlikely surge of support from fellow Tory MPs, Liam Fox’s backers so far are not going to be sufficient for his candidacy to survive the week. So why is he running? Here’s what he had to say to that question on Sunday Politics today:
‘If you remember back to 2005, they were all wrong then. But let’s leave that aside on the arithmetic. The reason that I am in this race is that I think we need to take the argument on now from the referendum to how we actually take Britain out of the European Union. We also have to look at a range of other issues: we’re not in this race electing a leader of the opposition, which is what we have always done before. Someone doesn’t have four years to play themselves in. And the day after this election, someone is going to get a call from Mr Putin and they are going to have to make an assessment on our nuclear deterrents.’
Fox’s big pitch then is about experience. That whoever wins this race will have the nuclear codes, will be taking a phone call from Vladimir Putin on their next day in the job. Fox is the only candidate talking about foreign policy, and says that whoever triumphs won’t have the chance to ‘play themselves in’ during a period of opposition this time around- a subtle dig at the relative inexperience of Stephen Crabb and Andrea Leadsom. Fox wins on that experience, but so of Michael Gove and Theresa May. Liam Fox probably did manage to score a point against May during his interview when he touched on his reasoning for why the best candidate should be a Brexiteer. Fox argued:
‘If you were on the other side negotiating with Britain, would you be more likely to take seriously someone who had campaigned to leave the European Union, or someone who had chosen to remain in the European Union?’
We can expect to see that argument pop up again during the course of this leadership contest as Theresa May’s other rivals try to play on her referendum reticence. But whilst Fox thinks his experience makes him qualified for the top job, that same experience probably means he is well aware that he’s unlikely to make it through this week’s vote.
What’s particularly interesting about this Tory leadership race is that Fox is the only candidate who hails from the Tory right. It’s worth dwelling for a moment on how rare that is: as James Forsyth points out in his Spectator piece this week, this is the first time in the history of the Conservative party that one of the frontrunners isn’t from the right of the party. What’s more, usually it might be expected for a sole candidate from the party’s right to attract a wider base of like-minded MPs gathering around in support: as with everything that’s atypical about politics at the moment, that hasn’t happened this time around and Fox looks set to pay the price.
What’s bad for Fox, though, is good for the Conservatives: the lack of support for him amongst Tory MPs makes it clear there is no split in the party between the traditionalists and the modernisers. And whilst the aftermath of Brexit might prove a headache for the Conservative Government in working out what comes next, its members can at least be grateful for some degree of unity amongst the candidates running for the top job. If we can learn anything from Fox’s largely token bid, then, maybe it’s that putting the Tory party back together again might be easier than expected.
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