Leadership elections: Conservative Party

Following the Conservative Party’s defeat at the 2024 general election, Rishi Sunak announced he would stand down as leader of the Conservative Party. He said he would not step down immediately but once the formal arrangements for selecting his successor were in place.

The timing and rules of stage 1 of the leadership election are a matter for the 1922 Committee, a committee of all backbench Conservative MPs that meets weekly when the House of Commons is sitting. A senior Conservative Party backbencher chairs the committee.

Its previous chair, Sir Graham Brady, retired at the 2024 general election. The new chair, Bob Blackman, was elected at a meeting on 9 July. Details of the leadership election process were announced on 22 July. MPs needed to be nominated by ten Conservative MPs to be a candidate. Six candidates gained enough nominations to enter the race, Kemi Badenoch, James Cleverly, Robert Jenrick, Dame Priti Patel, Mel Stride and Tom Tugendhat.

Candidates were able to campaign over the summer. Two stages of votes by Conservative MPs took place in September to narrow the field to four. The first was held on 4 September with Dame Priti Patel eliminated. The next vote, on Tuesday 10 September, saw Mel Stride eliminated.

A husting was held at the party conference for the four remaining candidates. The next round of voting by MPs was 8 October 2024 which saw Tom Tugendhat eliminated. The final ballot of MPs on 9 October eliminated James Cleverly.

The party’s wider membership then voted for leader. The winer was announced on 2 November and Kemi Badenoch beat Robert Jenrick. She won 56.5% of the vote with just over 95,000 of 132,000 eligible party members voting.

The leader of the Party must be a sitting MP.

Conservative Party leadership elections usually consist of two stages:

• Stage 1 – Conservative MPs choose two candidates to put forward to stage two.

• Stage 2 – Party members are balloted. The candidate with the most votes wins.

A leadership contest will occur if a sitting leader resigns or if they lose a vote of no confidence of MPs.

A vote of no confidence in a sitting leader must be held if 15% of Conservative MPs write to the chairman of the 1922 Committee saying they no longer have confidence in the leader. The current 15% threshold is 54 MPs. MPs may withdraw letters at any time.

The rules for votes of no confidence are a matter for the 1922 Committee and are not available in the public domain.

The rules and procedures for stage 1 of a leadership election are determined by the Executive of the 1922 Committee in consultation with the Conservative Party Board. This will include how an MP can be validly nominated.

The rules are not in a publicly available document. Each time a leadership election is held the chair of the 1922 Committee will announce the rules to be followed and the timetable.

If there are more than two candidates the field is whittled down. This will usually involve a series of ballots, depending on the number of candidates. If multiple ballots are required, the candidate(s) with the lowest vote is/are eliminated and MPs are re-balloted until only two candidates remain.

In 2019 there were initially 10 candidates in the first ballot and six rounds of balloting were required before the final two candidates were known.

In the event of only one candidate being successfully nominated they become leader of the Party. However, they may be subject to a vote of Party members to ratify the result.

The two MPs selected in stage 1 face a ballot of Party members. This is done on the basis of one member one vote. The candidate who receives the most votes wins.