How seriously should we take a plot to replace Rishi Sunak with Penny Mordaunt? The answer lies in the Tories’ own recent history

Penny Mordaunt’s potential bid to replace Rishi Sunak in the Conservative Party leadership mirrors past slogans, highlighting Tory uncertainties and leadership challenges.

D uring John Redwood’s 1995 challenge to John Major’s leadership of the Conservative Party, his campaign team came up with the slogan, “No change, no chance”. It was sure to appeal to Tory MPs rightly fearing for their seats.

But, since a recent opinion poll had given Labour a lead of almost 40 points – and the only available instrument of change was Redwood, rather than someone electable – a more honest pitch would have been: “No chance either way, but let’s at least lose with a right-wing leader.”

Slogans can be used more than once, and if speculation about an initiative to replace Rishi Sunak with Penny Mordaunt is well founded, “team Penny” could be confident that they would be reviving Redwood’s refrain on behalf of a more plausible contestant. Whatever her political abilities, Mordaunt (unlike Redwood) seems to be personable, presentable – and pretty nifty with an oversized ceremonial sword.

Why, as an apparently balanced individual, would Mordaunt want this job? First, having served as prime minister for a few weeks is still a positive embellishment to the average CV.

Even being Conservative leader in opposition is probably helpful in the eyes of prospective employers. That would be enough to justify a temporary sacrifice of sanity before Mordaunt takes the plunge back into reality television.

— PM Penny Mordaunt?

The no change, no chance argument also makes sense for Mordaunt personally, since she is scheduled to lose her seat at the next election. Having to leave her current cabinet position of leader of the House of Commons would not cause her excessive grief.

Given the havoc which can be expected after the next general election, and the roster of far-right aspirants who have been limbering up to succeed Sunak, for Mordaunt it is almost certainly now or never.

Would a change give them a chance?

But would yet another change of leader help the Conservatives? In one respect, it almost certainly would. Sunak’s tenure was doomed not least because right-wing MPs were always determined to deny him the chance to establish governing authority.

If Mordaunt became leader at the invitation of the party’s ultra-nationalists, she would have a much better chance of creating an illusion of party unity. They’d all have to just keep quiet about the fact that she is essentially the same person the parliamentary party rejected two years ago, when MPs decided she was less enticing than Liz Truss.

Mordaunt’s family background, meanwhile, is sufficiently interesting to attract sympathetic media intrusion, without featuring any multi-billionaires. An additional advantage is that few people know what she stands for, and probably never will.

— If Mordaunt becomes PM, she will have to choose a ministerial team.

A Google of the would-be saviour’s name readily yields “Penny Mordaunt coronation” to commemorate her best-known service to king and country. Unfortunately, Mordaunt’s own coronation is a highly improbable scenario.

The Tories would first have to prise out the incumbent, which is likely to be a messy business since there is little sign of Sunak doing a Leo Varadkar and resigning.

Equally, even if Mordaunt proves to be a passable poster-person, she will have to choose a ministerial team. With heavy debts to pay on her right flank, the ensuing line-up could be unedifying.

Lord Johnson to displace Cameron from his Foreign Office haunt? Truss at the Treasury? Such prospects might inspire a dramatic switch in the UK’s net migration figures, but at an unacceptable cost.

The heart of the problem

Although the current speculation is not entirely far-fetched, the bottom line is that if the Conservatives go for Penny, they are still in for a pounding. After the next election, almost anything is possible from a party which is an unwitting gift to public entertainment, and can’t stop itself giving. By the end of the next parliament, the Tory leader could equally be Nigel Farage or someone who is currently at prep school.

When historians look back on the farcical unravelling of a once-great party, they will alight on 1997 as the time when it all started going wrong. One person, one vote in leadership elections is a worthy idea in theory, but should never have been extended to a frivolous body of people like Conservative Party members.

Even more alarming than the number of leadership contests is the post-1997 tendency of all Conservative MPs, however unqualified, to consider standing for a job which became impossible in 2016, if not before. Michael Howard – rejected in 1997 and acclaimed six years later – tried in vain to get rid of a system which had allowed the party faithful to elevate Iain Duncan Smith.

For the Tories, there is now no navigable route back to common sense. Even if the final choice of leader is once again entrusted to MPs, they will (as in the fateful instance of Boris Johnson) feel constrained to select the person who is most appealing to the grassroots.

Unfortunately for Sunak, he cannot pass a vote of no confidence in his party and install a new one. Despite the speculation, as in the case of Major, they are probably stuck with each other until the electorate sends them on their (very) separate ways.

Sources:

▪ This piece was originally published in The Conversation and re-published in PUBLIC SQUARE UK on 26 March 2024. | The author writes in a personal capacity.

▪ Cover: Flickr/Number 10. (Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.)