Tory members shouldn’t pick leaders while party is in government, says Graham Brady

Conservative Party members should be stripped of the ability to pick their leader when the Tories are in government, the chairman of the 1922 committee has said.

Speaking to students at Durham University last Thursday, Sir Graham Brady argued that MPs, rather than the grassroots, should decide the successor if a Conservative prime minister is toppled.

He said it was “crazy” that while MPs determined whether a leader was kept in place through the no confidence letters system, Tory members selected a new prime minister.

The comments, captured in an audio recording passed to The Telegraph, emerged as some Tory rebels prepare to question Rishi Sunak’s leadership after Thursday’s local elections.

The Tories are braced for bruising results, with forecasts suggesting as many half of their almost 1,000 council seats being voted on could be lost.

Sir Graham’s position as chairman of the 1922 committee, made up of Tory backbenchers, means he plays a key role in deciding the rules in any snap leadership race.

Tory MPs wishing to trigger a leadership contest send no confidence letters to him. If 15 per cent of the party’s MPs do so, a confidence vote in the leader takes place. Currently, that would mean 52 Conservative MPs having to submit a letter.

Sir Graham’s remarks will raise suspicions that, should Mr Sunak be toppled, Tory party members would be circumvented in the process for picking his successor before the general election.

When Liz Truss resigned in autumn 2022 after less than two months as prime minister, the rules were changed in a way that saw Mr Sunak replace her without a vote from members.

The Conservative Party has a two-stage process for picking leaders. MPs whittle the candidates down to a final two, then party members vote on which one should become leader. The process was brought in by Lord Hague as he attempted to modernise the party after Labour’s landslide 1997 victory.

But in recent years some have questioned whether the members, who selected Ms Truss over Mr Sunak in the 2022 contest to replace Boris Johnson, should have the final say. That year, Lord Hague said members should no longer pick Tory leaders.

Addressing the Durham University School of Government and International Affairs last week, Sir Graham said: “Essentially, what he [Lord Hague] had done was allow the party members of the country to have the final choice between two. And the 1922 committee was given the task of electing the two, and that’s the system we’ve had ever since 1998.

“But I’m the first chairman of the ‘22 who has had to operate it while we’ve been in government... [inaudible]. And so my view is that that was a mistake to introduce that rule.

“I think it’s fine to have the party members voting on the leader when you’re in opposition. But in a parliamentary system where essentially you could only remain prime minister if you enjoyed the confidence of your party in Parliament, it seems to me crazy that we now have different mechanisms in that the parliamentary party.

“The Conservative members of Parliament can get rid of the leader by voting no confidence, but then the leader is supplied by the party members.”

A little later, he added: “So I would, from choice... remove that final vote for the members for when the party is in government. But it will never happen, because you will need the party members to vote by a super majority in a constitutional change in order to make that different. And they won’t.”

To make such a change to the Conservative Party’s constitution, two-thirds of various different parts of the party would need to agree.

Contacted by The Telegraph about his comments, Sir Graham said he had made similar arguments before in public. He also made it clear that at no point was he advocating a change in leader.

The MP for Altrincham and Sale West, will step down at the next election and will publish a memoir, Kingmaker, after the general election.