Who will replace Theresa May as Conservative leader?

[mileslunn]

Johnson all the way. Rudd is a decent choice, but she needs to find a better seat as hers is one of most vulnerable and considering the swings in her neck of the woods I could see a scenario of the Tories winning nationally but losing her seat.

[mileslunn]

I saw Amber Rudd on the election coverage and have since followed her on Twitter. She's very impressive.

Her biggest obstacle is her constituency of Hastings and Rye was a very close marginal and she only won by around 300 votes and there was a bigger swing towards Labour so there is a real risk she could lose her seat while the Tories still win nationally.  At least with Boris Johnson, if he loses his seat, the Tories would almost certainly lose nationally, but agreed she is quite reasonable.  I've often found those in more marginal constituencies tend to be more moderate while the more right wing elements in the party are mostly in very safe constituencies.  Similar with Labour too.

[mileslunn]

I know most probably will disagree with this, but I think it should be Boris Johnson.  Sure a bit of a buffoon at times, but people like someone they can relate to.  He is pro Brexit as most who are staunchly anti-Brexit aren't voting Tory anyways, urban, and a one nation conservative so fairly moderate.  This shows https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdTQFl2m1c4 why he connects well with people and would be a good choice for the next leader and prime-minister. 

I also think Labour should dump Corbyn and replace with Sadiq Khan.  Yes Corbyn is popular amongst millennials and those more on the left, but he scares away the centrist you need to win whereas Khan connects well with millennials without scaring off older voters or centrist ones.  Right now with the mess the Tories are in, Labour should have at least a 10 point lead, yet they are only two points ahead and if an election were held today they would have a hung parliament with Labour ahead by only 10 seats and under 300 seats.  Despite Corbyn outperforming what many including myself thought his room for growth is quite limited.  Khan is like Justin Trudeau or Barack Obama, can appeal to millennials, but also not scare away older voters whereas Corbyn is more like Sanders, Melenchon, GreenLeft in Netherlands, or Podemos in Spain, popular with younger voters but scares the heck out of centrists.  I know this likely won't happen but my wish is to see Boris Johnson as Conservative leader and Sadiq Khan for Labour in the next election, you would have two strong and very capable leaders which Britain could be proud of no matter who won.

[mileslunn]

you would have two strong and very capable leaders which Britain could be proud of no matter who won.

Not with Johnson, I'm afraid.

Perhaps you have to live in this country to fully perceive this, but Johnson's public persona and political appeal is not how you describe it. He's as divisive as Donald Trump is or Stephen Harper was - utterly loathed by his ideological opponents and irritating to a wide swath of his own tribe as well. What you allege as his moderation and urbanity is based, as far as I can tell, on the fact that he was mayor of London. This might have been the case 5-10 years ago, but since the referendum he's pursued an avowedly hard-right/hard Brexit form of opportunism, making him toxic to centrists and cityfolk alike.

Also, being 'urban' isn't what it used to be. Again, 10 years ago when the conventional wisdom was that growth, diversity, cosmopolitanism, and unrestricted financial markets (read: London) were a good thing for everyone, Johnson's style of urbanism fit the bill. To centrist/moderate/urban/surburban voters he represented a bridgehead for the Tories: a sign that a stuffy, provincial, insular party could compete in the big, sexy, modern world of London (alongside the suave New Labourites who were in charge at the time). His pedigree made that case convincing: born abroad, Eton/Oxford educated, media savvy, and refreshingly unkempt when compared to the stolid figures elsewhere in the Tory party.

Now the mood has shifted. Super elite backgrounds and slick image management are much more cause for suspicion and derision, if not outright contempt, than previously. The reputation of London, its finance-dominated economy, and the wider system of inequality it helped perpetuate, are equally out of fashion. As as result, Johnson's profile doesn't come off as something people relate to anymore. His background looks ridiculously elite and out-of-touch. His 'buffoonery' comes off as a well practiced act (this is more due to him being around so long and the shtick wearing off). And his association with the policies of high neo-liberalism before the crash and austerity afterwards puts him at odds with the prevailing winds of populism, wealth redistribution, and renewed government intervention in the economy.

As for Corbyn and Khan, Corbyn is certainly divisive, but in the last election he pulled in as much of the electorate as Tony Blair did in his prime. He might not have much more room to grow with centrists or people over 45, but with the Tories imploding he doesn't really have to. Khan is a solid politician, but he lacks the charisma of Obama or Trudeau. To be honest, he has more in common with Sanders than Corbyn does - middle class background, hails from an ethnic minority, pragmatic rather than idealistic.

But has Britain really swung that much to the left.  In urban areas and amongst younger voters perhaps, but amongst older voters and areas outside the big cities, results seem to suggest the opposite as I believe May got 60% of the senior's vote which even Thatcher couldn't do and nationally the Tories are still around 40% which for the past quarter of the century they have been unable to do (mind you the implosion of the Liberal Democrats and UKIP has helped push their numbers up and also Labour's too).  Canada has definitely swung leftward, but I've always thought Britain was more polarized than Canada so you can certainly make those on the left more ideological as we are seeing, but you cannot pull those on the right over to the left like you can in Canada, it's more like the US where those on the right will stay there.

If you look at the youtube video, it seems to show Johnson is quite popular with people and connects much better than May who is very wooden in her demeanour.  Sidaq Khan has a net approval rating of +40 which is well above any politician and while it wouldn't be that high nationally, I am sure it would be positive whereas Corbyn as a negative net approval rating, just not as bad as May.  The problem for Labour is they can easily beat the Tories in seats, but getting a majority would require a much stronger swing than any polls suggest thus why I think they need someone who can pull away centrists much like Blair did.  While it's true Corbyn got almost the same percentage as Tony Blair did in 2001, more than 2005, and not far off 1997, Blair was far less polarizing so many centre-right voters were willing to go Liberal Democrat when they tired of the Tories whereas Corbyn is so toxic to those right of centre they will stay Tory to keep him out.  To win a majority he needs the Liberal Democrats to rebound in the rural South and UKIP to do better and neither seems likely at the moment.

[mileslunn]

I think it is questionable that May was more right wing than David Cameron.  Maybe on Brexit, immigration and social issues although she did vote in favour of gay marriage.  On economic issues she seemed more centrist as she favours a living wage, refused to ruled out raising taxes for the rich although unlike Corbyn it would be a last resort, talked about doing more on reducing inequality.  If you read the Tory manifesto it looks far more like something you would see from the Democrats than the GOP.  Even here in Canada, it is the type the old Progressive Conservatives would have put up, not the current Conservatives who are more right wing.  Also the total right wing vote went down in 2017 as lets remember UKIP got almost 14% in 2015 while 2% in 2017 so if you take the Tories + UKIP vote, it was 50% in 2015 while 44% in 2017. 

As for Corbyn's ideas, it is true raising taxes on the rich is popular as is the case in every country, but the danger is many wrongly assume it will hit the middle class as well thus why even though polls show taxing the rich is popular, politicians are generally reluctant to run on this.  Renationalization may seem popular, but the cost is the biggest barrier.  Otherwise most Brits believe privatizing Utilities, Royal Mail, and Rail was a mistake, but undoing it is not easy.  In addition much of the swing towards Labour was in the large urban centres.  If you look at the coal fields in the North, Labour didn't gain much and Tories gained more.  Traditional Labour constituencies like Copeland, Walsall North, Stoke on Trent South, Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland, Ashfield, and Derbyshire Northeast were all lost while in Newcastle under Lyme, Dudley North, Stoke on Trent North, Penistone and Stocksbridge, Barrow in Furness, and Bishop Auckland Tories came a lot closer than they normally do to winning them.  Never mind there were many constituencies Blair won where Corbyn was not competitive such as along the Channel line in Kent which went for Blair as recently as 2005 but Corbyn lost by 20 points or much of Staffordshire which Blair dominated but Corbyn lost badly.  In many ways Labour has the same problem as the Democrats in the US, they are running up the margins in the big cities, but struggling in the hinterlands.

Sadiq Khan maybe more your liberal cosmopolitan type, but that would appeal to millennials just as much as Corbyn and it wouldn't scare older voters as much.  Justin Trudeau unlike Corbyn was able to win/be competitive in the hinterlands (whether he holds those seats in 2019 is a different story) and wasn't largely confined to the large urban centres (although they were strongest there) and he was progressive but not as radical as Corbyn.

[mileslunn]

A lot depends on how you define 'marginal'. Rochester and Strood, for example, is certainly winnable in a good election for Labour but would be Tory in an average election (the Tory majority in Medway - the predecessor seat - was about the same in 1992 as it is now). A few in that area (the Thanets for example) actually look more rosy for Labour than they did in 1992.

In Kent, Dover is probably the most marginal but still would take a very big swing.  Mind you it does seem when seats in Kent go Labour they tend to swing much more heavily than the country as a whole and likewise against when they go Conservative.  For example I don't think many thought Canterbury was winneable going into the last election.  That being said they have a large university with a young population which probably tipped it in favour whereas I am not sure if any other Kent constituencies have favourable demographics.  I think the coastline from Shoreham to Hastings is probably where the Labour in the Southeast should aim to sweep asides from Caroline Lucas' constituency and Lewes and Eastbourne (the Liberal Democrats are the main challenger in those two).  In many ways there isn't a huge string of constituencies in any area they can win, rather it is getting Scotland in the central belt to swing behind them while elsewhere picking up another 30-40 seats in various marginals.  A few areas I can think of though is Lancashire seems to have a lot of marginal ones with only a few safe for each party so trying to pick up most but not all of the remaining Tory ones is one place.  Another thing I've noticed is if Labour wins usually you can drive from Nottingham to Liverpool going only through Labour constituencies provided you take a detour going from Nottingham to Sheffield (there are still some holes there) and then Sheffield to Liverpool (you couldn't do that in 2010 or 2015, but can in 2017) only passing through Labour constituencies.  West Midlands is a big problem as Labour got a favourable swing but in all the wrong areas.  The biggest were central Birmingham which was already solidly Labour or the southern rural areas which they were never going to win anyways.  In the Birmingham suburbs and Stoke on Trent, there was a strong swing towards the Tories.

[mileslunn]

Patel isn't next-PM material. Maybe the next IDS (opposition leader in lean year), but not at all a successor to May.

Is there any chance of Gove managing to hobble together the votes to win the leadership election?

LOL

his performance in 2016 was already outperforming expectations no way he's winning

A typical safe boring tory like Hammond or Davis. Kind of curious how Rees-Mogg would do in a general though.

No chance of it being Spreadsheet Phillip, tbh.

I think when you look at things realistically Boris Johnson is the best choice.  Amber Rudd is a good one but the danger is her seat is a very marginal one and the swing was bigger than the national so you could have the Tories win nationally but she loses her own seat.  At the very least she would need to move to a safer seat.  Ruth Davidson who helped the party gain seats in Scotland seems like a good choice, but don't think she is interested.  So I believe for all his flaws Boris Johnson is still the best choice of those who could realistically be leader.

[mileslunn]

I want it to be Osborne, but that's unlikely.

He would be a good choice.  For all those suggesting Rees-Mogg, he is very right wing and I think most Tories realize he would hurt them in urban constituencies and younger voters so doubt they are dumb enough to chose him.  The only way he could win is if a whole bunch of Labour members signed up to support him as he would be a dream candidate for Labour to run against. 

I also don't think moderates face the same difficulty in winning in the British Tories as say they do in the Canadian Tories and especially the GOP.  Both Cameron and May came from the moderate wing and with UKIP largely gone there are no more votes on the right to pick up, any additional votes will come from the centre.  In Canada and the US it is a different story as those further right have been more successful in the US while many on the right in Canada seem to fantasize there is some great untapped right wing mass whereas in the UK I think most realize this doesn't exist.  Both Cameron and May would be too centrist to either win the GOP and Canadian Tory leadership.  Both are like Michael Chong on the political spectrum in the Canadian Tories who was booed and often called a liberal in disguise.  British Tories never got hijacked by the Reform Party like in Canada nor did they have various right wing groups hijack them like the GOP.  May and Cameron are both more centrist than John Kasich who was the most moderate of the GOP and probably too moderate to win the GOP nomination today and in fact they would be more like Arnold Schwarznegger whose views are increasingly marginalized in the GOP.  Someone like Kenneth Clarke can still exist in the Tory tent, whereas in both Canada and the US he would be pushed out especially in the US.

[mileslunn]

That is possibly the worst take of the Tory party that I've ever read, impressive!

Osbourne spent six years as an incredibly unpopular chancellor associated with all of the austerity and other not so great things that went along with the Cameron years, so he'd be a terrible choice if they actually wanted to win an election.  Also the Tories would never elect someone who ardently campaigned for Remain in the referendum and someone who's stated mission for the last year has been to end the Prime Ministers Premiership.  There are strong, incredibly incomprehensible divisions in the Conservative Party and the way that the party is going right now someone like a Cameron or an Osbourne would have absolutely no chance with the Conservative Party membership - even if they manage to get out of the MPs vote.

Osborne is young enough that he still might get his chance.  After a term of one Labour government, I think he could be someone whom might be a good choice, but not now.