1995 Conservative Party leadership election (UK)

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1995 Conservative Party leadership election
←  1990 4 July 1995 (1995-07-04) 1997  →
  John Major 1996.jpg John Redwood.jpg
Candidate John Major John Redwood
Popular vote21889
Percentage66.3%27.1%
Leader before election

John Major

Elected Leader

John Major

The 1995 Conservative Party leadership election was initiated when the incumbent leader and Prime Minister, John Major, resigned as leader on 22 June 1995, in order to face his critics within the party. On 4 July 1995, he was re-elected, beating the only other candidate, the former Secretary of State for Wales, John Redwood.

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Head of UK Government

The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, until 1801 known as the Prime Minister of Great Britain, is the head of government of the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister directs both the executive and the legislature, and together with their Cabinet are collectively accountable for their policies and actions to the Monarch, to Parliament, to their political party and ultimately to the electorate.

John Major Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Sir John Major is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990 to 1997. He served as Foreign Secretary and then Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Thatcher Government from 1989 to 1990, and was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Huntingdon from 1979 until his retirement in 2001. Since the death of Margaret Thatcher in 2013, Major has been both the oldest and earliest-serving of all living former Prime Ministers.

Secretary of State for Wales United Kingdom government cabinet minister

Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for Wales is the principal minister of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom with responsibilities for Wales. He or she is a member of the cabinet and the head of the Wales Office. He or she is responsible for ensuring Welsh interests are taken into account by Her Majesty's Government, representing the government within Wales and overseeing the passing of legislation which is only for Wales. The current Secretary of State for Wales is Alun Cairns, following his appointment in 2016.

Contents

For some years the Conservative Party had been deeply divided on the issue of the European Union and there had been much speculation each year that Major would be challenged for the leadership during the annual re-election of the leader each November. Many both within and outside the party believed that the constant speculation was highly damaging and so Major took the dramatic step to force an early contest. He announced his decision in a speech in the garden of 10 Downing Street, challenging his party opponents to "put up or shut up". [1]

Conservative Party (UK) Political party in the United Kingdom

The Conservative Party, officially the Conservative and Unionist Party, sometimes informally called the Tories, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom. The governing party since 2010, it is the largest in the House of Commons, with 311 Members of Parliament, and also has 238 members of the House of Lords, 4 members of the European Parliament, 31 Members of the Scottish Parliament, 11 members of the Welsh Assembly, 8 members of the London Assembly and 7,462 local councillors.

European Union Economic and political union of European states

The European Union (EU) is a political and economic union of 28 member states that are located primarily in Europe. It has an area of 4,475,757 km2 (1,728,099 sq mi) and an estimated population of about 513 million. The EU has developed an internal single market through a standardised system of laws that apply in all member states in those matters, and only those matters, where members have agreed to act as one. EU policies aim to ensure the free movement of people, goods, services and capital within the internal market, enact legislation in justice and home affairs and maintain common policies on trade, agriculture, fisheries and regional development. For travel within the Schengen Area, passport controls have been abolished. A monetary union was established in 1999 and came into full force in 2002 and is composed of 19 EU member states which use the euro currency.

10 Downing Street Headquarters of British Government

10 Downing Street, also known colloquially in the United Kingdom simply as Number 10, is the headquarters of the Government of the United Kingdom and the official residence and office of the First Lord of the Treasury, a post which, for much of the 18th and 19th centuries and invariably since 1905, has been held by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

The Conservative government was also proving unpopular with the British public at the time, trailing the Labour Party in opinion polls and having suffered heavy losses in local elections for three successive years, as well as a poor performance in the previous year's European elections.

Rules

Under the rules at the time, (introduced in 1965 and modified in 1975), there would be a series of ballots, conducted by the 1922 Committee, with the committee's chairman, Sir Marcus Fox, serving as Returning Officer.

The 1922 Committee, formally known as the Conservative Private Members' Committee, is the parliamentary group of the Conservative Party in the UK House of Commons. The committee, consisting of all Conservative backbencher MPs, meets weekly while parliament is in session and provides a way for backbenchers to co-ordinate and discuss their views independently of frontbenchers. Its executive membership and officers are by consensus limited to backbench MPs, although since 2010 frontbench Conservative MPs have an open invitation to attend meetings. The committee can also play an important role in choosing the party leader. The group was formed in 1923 but became important after 1940. It is generally closely related to the leadership and under the control of party whips.

Marcus Fox British politician

Sir John Marcus Fox MBE was a British Conservative Party politician. He served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Shipley from 1970 to 1997. He was chairman of the 1922 Committee directly overseeing candidate selection for the Conservative Party in the 1979 General Election.

Since the leadership was vacant, candidates required the nomination of only two MPs. In the first round a candidate needed to win the backing of an absolute majority of MPs. [2] In addition they needed to have a margin over their nearest rival of 15% of the total electorate. [2]

Had neither of these been achieved, then a second ballot would take place the following week. Nominations would be reopened, and at this stage an absolute majority only would be required. If this did not happen, then the top two candidates would go forward to a third round.

Because of this process, the first round was widely regarded as the expression of confidence or otherwise in Major. Many speculated that if he did not achieve outright victory then he would resign, enabling more prominent Conservatives such as Michael Heseltine or Michael Portillo to stand in the second round. [2]

Michael Heseltine British Conservative politician

Michael Ray Dibdin Heseltine, Baron Heseltine,, is a British politician and businessman. Having begun his career as a property developer, he became one of the founders of the publishing house Haymarket. Heseltine served as a Conservative Member of Parliament from 1966 to 2001, and was a prominent figure in the governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major, including serving as Deputy Prime Minister under the latter.

Michael Portillo British politician turned television personality

Michael Denzil Xavier Portillo is a British journalist, broadcaster, and former Member of Parliament and Cabinet Minister of the Conservative Party. He was first elected to the House of Commons in a by-election in 1984. A strong admirer of Margaret Thatcher, and a Eurosceptic, Portillo served as a junior minister under both Thatcher and John Major, before entering the cabinet in 1992. A "darling of the right", he was seen as a likely challenger to Major during the 1995 Conservative leadership election, but stayed loyal. As Defence Secretary, he pressed for a purist Thatcherite course of "clear blue water", separating the policies of the Conservatives from those of the Labour Party.

Candidates and their platforms

John Major announced he would be a candidate for re election from the outset, and stood pledging continuity in office and the continuation of a broad-based approach to government.

The only candidate to enter the race was John Redwood, who resigned from the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Wales. Redwood ran on a staunchly Eurosceptic, Thatcherite manifesto.

Prominent Conservatives who did not stand

There were several Conservatives who did not stand in the first round but were either widely expected to stand in the event of a second round or did not stand for another reason. They included:

Interest was generated when it was reported that both Heseltine and Portillo had had a large number of telephone lines installed at offices, widely presumed (and, in Portillo's case, correctly) [3] to be a preparation for a second round bid. When this was raised during Prime Minister's Questions, Major laughingly attributed this to the effect of telephone privatisation. During the voting, Heseltine felt the need to publicly display his ballot paper to show that he had voted for Major.

Campaign

The period between the launch of the election and polling was short. The main interest occurred when Michael Heseltine publicly and strongly endorsed Major, which many commentators felt reinforced his position. Redwood's leadership bid came under much fire. His campaign slogan was "No change, no chance". A poster was issued on his behalf, written by Redwood's campaign manager David Evans, which urged Conservatives to vote Redwood to "Save Your Seat, Save Your Party, and Save Your Country".

At a personal level his nickname of "the Vulcan" reached prominence and much lampooning in the media, whilst his formal launch of his campaign was dismissed as a collection of all the mavericks on the right of the party, widely undermining his bid's credibility.

Ballot

The ballot was as follows:

Only ballot: 4 July 1995
CandidateVotes%
John Major 21866.3
John Redwood 8927.1
Abstentions103.0
Spoilt123.6
Majority12939.2
Turnout329N/A
John Major re-elected

Major had both an outright majority and the necessary 15% margin, but had received only three more votes than his private minimum target of 215. Had he polled lower, he had made up his mind to resign outright. [4] [5]

Consequences

No further leadership elections took place until after the Conservatives lost the 1997 general election in the face of a Labour landslide under Tony Blair. The party temporarily reunited. Michael Heseltine had given Major staunch support in the contest, and as a result was promoted to the position of Deputy Prime Minister. However, many believed that Heseltine had missed his last chance to become Prime Minister, as he was now in his sixties.

Portillo's failure to stand was widely felt to have cost him dearly. Redwood emerged as a clear alternative leader of the right of the party whilst many argued Portillo had lacked the nerve to make a first round challenge and potentially allowed Major to survive.

William Hague, still aged only thirty four at the time, was promoted to the Cabinet to Redwood's position as Welsh Secretary. When Major resigned as leader after losing the 1997 general election, Hague was thus in a position to stand for, and win, the leadership.

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References

  1. ↑ "1995 – Mr Major's resignation speech". johnmajor.co.uk. Retrieved 2016-07-13.
  2. 1 2 3 "Conservative Party Leadership Election 1995". BBC News. BBC. 1997. Retrieved 10 April 2012.
  3. ↑ Portillo, Michael (2007-04-15). "Believe me, Mr Miliband, No 10 is within your grasp". The Sunday Times. Archived from the original on 2008-09-07. Retrieved 2010-12-27.
  4. ↑ John Major: Autobiography
  5. ↑ "John Major: 'Undoubtedly a case for second EU referendum" as he hits out at Brexit rebels". ITV News. Retrieved 18 July 2018.
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