Choosing party leaders

Britain's Conservatives and Labour compared

Andrew Denham, Peter Dorey, Andrew S. Roe-Crines

• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781526134882
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

How political parties choose their leaders, and why they choose the leaders they do, are questions of fundamental importance in contemporary parliamentary democracies. This book examines political leadership selection in the two dominant parties in recent British political history, exploring the criteria and skills needed by political leaders to be chosen by their parties.
While the Conservative Party's strong record in office owes much to ability to project an image of leadership competence and governing credibility, the Labour Party has struggled with issues of economic management, leadership ability, and ideological splits between various interpretations of socialism. The authors argue that the Conservatives tend towards a unifying figure who can lead the Party to victory, whereas the Labour Party typically choose a leader to unite the party behind ideological renewal.
Exploring the contemporary political choices of leaders like Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn, this book offers a timely insight into the leadership processes of Britain's major political players.

1

Towards the end of the magic circle

When ill-health compelled Harold Macmillan to resign as Conservative leader and Prime Minister in October 1963, he declared that his successor would be chosen in accordance with the party’s ‘customary process of consultation’ (Macmillan, 1973: 506). Yet, the phrase ‘customary process of consultation’ implied a rather more regular and consistent procedure than what actually existed for ascertaining opinions and preferences within the Conservative Party. In fact, the actual process varied from one leadership to the next and was partly dependent on the circumstances and personalities involved. As one of Macmillan’s biographers observes, the phrase implies ‘precedents when none in fact existed. The leadership contests of 1911, 1923, 1940 … were all sui generis’ (Thorpe, 2013: 27).

The only feature that was common to all Conservative leadership selections or appointments during the first half of the twentieth century was the absence of a formal role for Conservative MPs in their choice or preference. Instead, those most closely involved in choosing a new party leader were a few senior Conservative Party parliamentarians who consulted as narrowly or widely as they deemed expedient to do. However, the controversial manner in which Macmillan’s successor was chosen in October 1963 fatally tarnished the so-called magic circle, and thus led to the adoption of a formal method for choosing subsequent Conservative leaders, entailing a secret ballot of the party’s MPs.

Prior to the democratic method adopted in 1965, the Conservatives’ closed and elitist mode of leadership selection reflected the party’s history and organisational development, and some of the key tenets of conservatism as a philosophy. Historically, the Conservatives had mostly evolved incrementally and organically, and although 1832 is often cited as the year when the modern Conservative Party was born, its antecedents stretched back further. Even in 1832, it was only the parliamentary Conservative Party that was established; the extra-parliamentary party was not created until 1867, when sections of the male working class were enfranchised. The party beyond parliament was titled the National Union of Conservative and Constitutional Associations (hereafter referred to as the National Union), but it was explicitly subordinate to the parliamentary party. Its role was to serve and support the Conservatives in Parliament, and it certainly had no formal role in the selection of Conservative leaders.

As such, the Conservatives made no pretence of being an internally democratic party. Instead, power was strongly concentrated in the hands of its most senior parliamentarians, both in terms of policy-making and leadership selection. For example, with regard to policy, Arthur Balfour once declared that ‘I’d rather take advice from my valet than from the Conservative Party Conference.’ Meanwhile, with regard to Conservative leadership selection, the Conservative MP Ernest Pretyman asserted in 1921 that:

great leaders of parties are not elected, they are evolved … It will be a bad day for this or any other party to have solemnly to meet to elect a leader … There is no necessity, either now or at any future time, to hold a competition for the leadership of the party. (quoted in McKenzie, 1955: 34)

Such attitudes also reflected key aspects of the Conservatives’ philosophy, most notably a strong belief in the virtues, or necessity, of authority, deference, empiricism, hierarchy, inequality, and wisdom derived from age and experience. These values (along with others beyond the scope of this book) not only shaped the Conservatives’ approach to governing and policies, but also strongly impacted on the manner in which the party selected its leaders.

Rather than facilitating the direct involvement of Conservative MPs, or even the extra-parliamentary party, new leaders were usually selected either by an heir apparent being identified by the retiring or resigning incumbent, or by discussions among senior Conservatives on who was the best available candidate. Although the chosen one was then presented to the parliamentary Conservative Party for approval, this was a formality, as the MPs and peers were not being asked to make a choice, but to ratify the choice that had already been made or, in the case of an heir apparent, offer the party’s strong approval and acclamation for the natural successor to the outgoing leader.

As such, the means by which a new Conservative leader was selected did not entail a ‘customary process’, but an ad hoc approach that depended heavily on the circumstances and personalities involved at any given juncture. In accordance with the Conservative principles identified, this ‘method’ reflected the assumption that the party’s elders, by virtue of their superior experience and accumulated wisdom, were best placed to gauge the leadership potential and qualities of their colleagues. The role of Conservative MPs would be that of ritual acclamation when the chosen one was announced and presented to their fellow parliamentarians. It was this mode of leadership selection which invoked the image of men in grey suits or the magic circle conjuring up a new leader prior to emerging from smoke-filled rooms to unveil their choice to the rest of the Conservative Party and the media. Even so, on a few occasions there was no choice to be made because the incumbent leaders had already made clear who their (preferred) successor would be, not least by the prestigious and prominent cabinet posts they had been awarded. That said, the leader would obviously need to be confident that their nominee would command widespread support in the rest of the parliamentary Conservative Party, although in the absence of a formal system of gauging backbench views on a leadership successor, much depended on the incumbent’s judgement about the mood of the party towards the chosen one in terms of acceptability and potential for achieving (or maintaining) unity, and also how popular and respected they were among their cabinet colleagues, partly in terms of proven competence.

Pre-1945 Conservative leadership successions by an heir apparent

There were three occasions, in the first half of the twentieth century, when an heir apparent was appointed, thereby enabling a smooth transition from one leader to the next. The first such occasion was in July 1902, when Lord Salisbury’s retirement led to the appointment of his nephew, Arthur Balfour, as his successor: ‘Balfour’s succession to the premiership was generally expected’ (Blake, 1985: 167; see also Norton and Aughey, 1981: 117). After all, Salisbury had been Conservative leader for almost twenty-one years, and thus had been granted plenty of time to identify a successor, and then ensure that they occupied senior and high-profile government posts so that they were suitably qualified (in terms of ministerial experience), competent and well known. In Balfour’s case, he was the Leader of the House of Commons and then First Lord of the Treasury (the latter subsequently being a title enjoyed by the prime minister). Balfour also deputised for Salisbury both at the Foreign Office and as acting prime minister when the latter was either ill or abroad on political business. Thus it was that ‘the leadership in effect passed automatically from Salisbury to Balfour … without any hint of opposition or serious rivalry within the Party.’ Indeed, when he was presented to a joint meeting of Conservative MPs and peers for formal endorsement, his appointment as Conservative leader and Prime Minister was unanimously endorsed (McKenzie, 1955: 26–8).

The second occasion in the first half of the twentieth century when the Conservative leadership was passed on to an heir apparent was in 1921, when Andrew Bonar Law resigned on health grounds and was succeeded by Austen Chamberlain as leader of the party in the House of Commons. Chamberlain had ‘long been regarded as heir apparent’ to Bonar Law, and his magnanimous withdrawal from the 1911 leadership contest in order to avoid exacerbating intra-party divisions had subsequently enhanced the widespread respect he enjoyed among Conservative MPs (Fisher, 1977: 24; see also Dutton, 2015: 184). As such, ‘his selection was a foregone conclusion,’ and he was unanimously endorsed by a meeting of Conservative MPs and peers at the Carlton Club in March 1921 (Shepherd, 1991: 117; Block, 1965).

However, Chamberlain’s leadership proved short-lived, for when a majority of Conservative MPs voted to withdraw from the Coalition Government (with the Liberals) in October 1922, he immediately resigned as leader of the party in the House of Commons. He had been in favour of continuing the coalition, in spite of the growing opposition to it in the parliamentary party, which he had been informed of by George Younger, the party’s chair at the beginning of 1922 (Ball, 2013: 514). In the absence of an heir apparent, the King invited Bonar Law – who had by now recovered from the illness that had compelled him to resign the previous year – to resume his leadership of the Conservative Party, which he did, with the unanimous support of the parliamentary Conservative Party. However, he was again obliged to resign due to a recurrence of health problems in the following year (Blake, 1985: 204–6; Charmley, 1996: 61–2; Dutton, 2015: 190–2; Fisher, 1977: 25–6; Ramsden, 1999: 244–5; Shepherd, 1991: 120–6; Block, 1965).

The third occasion, in the first half of the twentieth century, when an heir apparent was readily acknowledged was when Neville Chamberlain succeeded Stanley Baldwin in 1937. As with Salisbury, Baldwin’s lengthy (fourteen-year) tenure as Conservative Party leader and sometime Prime Minister meant that there was sufficient time for a natural successor to be promoted, with Chamberlain twice serving as Chancellor of the Exchequer (albeit the first time was short-lived, due to electoral defeat), and once as Secretary of State for Health. He also deputised for Baldwin during the summer and autumn of 1936, when the Prime Minister was suffering from nervous exhaustion. When Baldwin retired the following year, Chamberlain was ‘his long pre-ordained successor’ (Blake, 1985: 238). Indeed, because he was ‘the inevitable successor … The transition of power was smooth’. Not only was he Baldwin’s natural and obvious successor, he had acquired ‘a reputation established over nearly fifteen years for executive capacity and legislative achievement’ (Ball, 2015: 215). Indeed, it has been claimed that ‘his succession as Tory leader was the smoothest since Balfour’s in 1902’ (Shepherd, 1991: 136).

Pre-1945 Conservative leadership contests involving two candidates

On other occasions, there were at least two contenders for the leadership, as was the case in November 1911, when Balfour resigned ostensibly due to ill-health, although he was really suffering from ‘boredom with the task of holding his restless Party together’, with Tariff Reform being a particularly contentious and politically divisive issue in the early twentieth century (Fisher, 1977: 22). With no heir apparent, two candidates materialised, namely Austen Chamberlain and Walter Long. However, support for them was relatively evenly divided, which posed a serious risk of exacerbating tensions in the parliamentary Conservative Party; particularly as there was considerable personal animosity between them. This divisive and potentially damaging situation was compounded by the party’s lack of a formal leadership (s)election procedure for choosing between two (or more) candidates. However, in this instance, even if there had been a ballot, the likely result would have been a very narrow victory of one of the contenders, which would have meant that a very large minority of Conservative MPs did not support them: a technical victory of, say, 51 per cent to 49 per cent would have posed serious problems to the authority and legitimacy of the winner.

An intra-party crisis was averted when Chamberlain and Long agreed to withdraw their candidatures in favour of Bonar Law, who was persuaded to present himself as a unity candidate, although he did so with some with reluctance, having viewed himself as a potential future leader, rather than becoming one at this juncture (Fisher, 1977: 23; see also Blake, 1985: 194; Bogdanor, 1994: 73; Charmley, 1996: 45–6; Norton and Aughey, 1981: 244; Ramsden, 1999: 215; Shepherd, 1991: 113–15; Southgate, 1977: 242; Taylor, 2015: 157–8). As we will note later, there was another occasion when a reluctant candidate was persuaded to stand in order to provide unity when the support enjoyed by other leadership contenders was matched by the strong opposition they aroused among other Conservative MPs. Having overcome his initial reticence, and been formally proposed and seconded by Chamberlain and Long themselves, Bonar Law was unanimously endorsed as leader at a meeting of the parliamentary Conservative Party (Block, 1965).

The next occasion when there were two contenders was when ill-health compelled Bonar Law to resign in May 1923, whereupon Lord Curzon and Baldwin were acknowledged as the main rivals to fill the vacancy. Although Curzon was widely viewed as the weightier and more experienced candidate – having held the posts of Viceroy of India and Foreign Secretary, and also deputised for Bonar Law when the latter was indisposed – it was Baldwin who was actually chosen, albeit with considerable confusion and some controversy surrounding this decision. In the absence of a formal leadership (s)election procedure, the monarch, King George V, took advice via his Private Secretary from senior Conservatives over who should replace Bonar Law. The latter was apparently too ill to inform the King of his own preference, but he was thought to have supported Baldwin (who had, in 1922, been appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer by Bonar Law), and it may have been that this information was conveyed to the King via other sources (Fisher, 1977: 26–8; see also Dilks, 1977: 283–4; Ramsden, 1999: 249–50).

It was Baldwin whom the King eventually chose, a key reason being that Curzon sat in the House of Lords. The 1911 Parliament Act had effectively confirmed the constitutional supremacy of the House of Commons, and it was now widely acknowledged that a prime minister ought to be a member of the latter. It was six days after his appointment as Prime Minister before Baldwin was unanimously endorsed by a meeting of Conservative MPs and peers, with Curzon himself magnanimously moving the motion of acceptance (Block, 1965).

The final occasion during the first half of the twentieth century when there were two candidates was in May 1940, although the situation was complicated by the fact that, initially, it was a new prime minister who was sought, rather than a Conservative Party leader. The Conservative leader, Neville Chamberlain, had attempted to form a wartime coalition government to pursue Britain’s military resistance to the Nazi conquest of much of mainland Europe. However, by this time, Chamberlain had lost the confidence of many Conservative MPs (who seriously doubted his ability to provide effective leadership during wartime) – ‘He was ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of tables
• Acknowledgements
• List of abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 Towards the end of the magic circle
• 2 A democratic parliamentary Conservative Party
• 3 Enfranchising the extra-parliamentary party
• 4 From chairman to leader: the selection of Labour leaders by the Parliamentary Labour Party, 1906–80
• 5 From Healey to Miliband: the election of Labour leaders and deputy leaders by the Electoral College
• 6 The Labour leadership election(s) of Jeremy Corbyn
• Conclusion
• References
• Index