Today is the deadline for Conservative candidates to be selected – and one man made it just under the wire. Richard Holden, the party chairman, was last night selected for the constituency of Basildon and Billericay after an acrimonious selection process. Under party rules, if a seat is vacant within 48 hours of the nomination deadline, then the party can propose just one name. Holden was thus the only candidate put to local members. The two-hour long meeting was restricted to the association executive, with ordinary members unable to attend.
Compounding the anger towards Holden is that he is the party chairman and thus held to a different standard
Andrew Baggott, the association chairman, complained that ‘We’ve known that the seat needed a candidate since last October. CCHQ (Conservative Campaign Headquarters) have fobbed us off for months and even last night [Tuesday] we were told that we would have a group of three candidates to choose from.’ Speaking to Channel 4 afterwards, Holden denied it was a stitch-up and insisted ‘I’ve been recused from [the] entire candidates process’. With his current seat of North West Durham about to be abolished, Holden was asked why he did not fight another one in the region. ‘I’d said that I am blimmin’ loyal to the north-east’ he replied. ‘My seat was chopped up into four and so I was displaced.’ A Conservative party spokesman said: ‘Richard Holden was unanimously selected last night for Basildon and Billericay after facing questions from the local association executive.’
Many of Holden’s colleagues are not impressed by all this. For more than a year now, dozens of MPs in marginal seats across the red wall have had to reconcile themselves to the almost certain loss of their seats. Some have chosen to stay and fight in a doomed last stand. To see one of their number switch at the last minute for a constituency 250 miles south is grating, to say the least – let alone the colleague who is in charge of much of their campaigning efforts. One Tory MP says it is ‘displaying the worst in politicians that they only care for themselves’ with some taking a loss ‘for the team’ while ‘others shamelessly chicken run.’ Another says it will ‘anger hardworking members who are on the list and have been completely looked over.’ Reports of Holden’s botched bid for a seat in Suffolk have only added to Tory irritation about a dilemma that had been foreseeable since his promotion to chairman seven months ago.
In fairness to Holden, he is not the only one doing this. Incumbent MPs Chris Clarkson, Stuart Andrew, Kieran Mullan and Neil Hudson have all moved to constituencies many miles south. Others have tried and failed too. Such efforts have also attracted criticism but compounding the anger towards Holden is that he is the party chairman and thus held to a different standard. ‘He could have set an example’ complains one 2019-er, who says he could have ‘fought elsewhere, even though he knew he’d lose.’ Another suggests it showed Holden had been distracted from taking the fight to Labour. ‘Our chairman is meant to be the second or third most visible on the campaign trail but has been so preoccupied with saving his own skin that he has not been doing his job properly.’
Holden would point to his track record in the Conservative cause. Within hours of Nigel Farage announcing his return, he was out in Clacton with Giles Watling and 40 activists to knock on doors. But it seems fair to say that, unlike in previous elections, CCHQ has struggled this time with ‘attack dogs’ to go out and land blows on Labour policies. Michael Fallon performed this role well in the 2015 and 2017 campaigns, earning the nickname ‘the minister for the Today programme’. Prime Ministers, by contrast, have tended to prefer to remain above the fray. Yet Rishi Sunak has thus far fronted much of the party political output – which some see as an indictment of a campaign which does not have enough bruisers to send out on the airwaves.
If Sunak loses on 4 July, there will be pressure from certain quarters within the Conservative party to have a swift contest to replace him. The incumbent leader has previously set their own timetable: John Major left after six weeks, Michael Howard after six months. In such circumstances, the party chairman might be expected to be an ‘honest broker’. For some colleagues, it will now not be possible to see Holden in that way.
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