by The question “do Tory MPs fix leadership votes with dirty tricks?” usually equated to “is the Pope Catholic?” or “are there s*** bears in the woods?”. It is obvious and happens every time even if it happens in secret.
So it’s no surprise to anyone that allegations are already being made of vote-fixing in the current first round of the Tory leadership contest.
The doubts relate to former work and pensions secretary Mel Stride who is not seen as a serious candidate to replace Rishi Sunak, although he is seen as a good guy.
Somehow, he managed to get enough MPs to put him on the primary ballot and then got 16 votes, one more than Priti Patel in the first round – which meant that the former secretary the home of the person dismissed.
This was achieved even though Mr Stride has yet to launch an official leadership campaign.
Mr. Stride is now one of the other options early in his sight, the former security minister Tom Tugendhat, who managed to get only one more vote, with 17 in the first round.
Essentially, Tory leadership vote-fixing is the practice of a front-runner lending votes to a lesser candidate who can then be moved up to take on a more serious opponent.
This can happen because Tory MPs have to decide who the final two will be before MPs vote in an open contest.
There are strong allegations that this has happened before. Infamously, MPs supporting Boris Johnson supposedly switched to Jeremy Hunt to ensure he kept Michael Gove out of the final two in 2019. Mr Gove was seen as the biggest threat to Mr Johnson.
Mr Gove was also said to have lost out in 2016 when Theresa May’s camp allegedly switched votes to Andrea Leadsom. Ms Leadsom was such a weak candidate that she pulled out of the entire race before members even had a chance to choose the final two.
Back in the day, Iain Duncan Smith’s supporters voted to get Ken Clarke into the final two to beat the favourite, Michael Portillo.
Sometimes it can backfire. Rishi Sunak’s team allegedly lent votes to Liz Truss to stop Penny Mordaunt in July 2022 but lost anyway.
What now raises suspicions is the constant presence of two former prime ministers – Gavin Williamson and Julian Smith – throughout the Commons. They have previously been accused of tactical voting ploys. In the interests of fairness, argued Mr Williamson The Independent that he is staying out of this leadership contest.
But the Robert Jenrick camp is alleged to have lent votes to Mr Stride to first eliminate his main rival on the right, Dame Priti Patel, and will do it again to defeat Mr Tugendhat.
While Dame Priti has pulled it off with incredible grace, some of her supporters are angrily making allegations.
There were claims that three votes were switched from Mr Jenrick to Mr Stride, who had 13 supporters in each camp, rather than 16.
It now appears that Badenoch’s team is making a similar claim against Jenrick’s camp, perhaps in an attempt to tarnish his name after he surprised everyone by beating Kemi Badenoch by six votes 28 to 22. There are concerns clear there that Ms. Badenoch, the far-. Am bookies’ favorite to replace Mr. Sunak and his poll of members could, suffering the same fate as Mr. Portillo in 2001 before members get a chance to vote for him.
The irony of this is that former culture secretary Nadine Dorries has been claiming for months now that there is a “plot” to install Ms Badenoch as the next Tory leader linked to Mr Gove and backroom operator Dougie Smith. That plot doesn’t seem to be working right now – if it ever was.
But Team Jenrick’s figures have been staggered by the claims and it has been said The Independent that they are “utter b*****ks”.
There could be something to this. After the votes in the first round were counted, and Mr Jenrick emerged as the clear winner, his response was delayed because, as his spokesman said, “we have to get his hostage off the ground first”, the apparently he was surprised.
The team had calculated that he would get 24 votes and were trying to work out where the extra four came from when they were accused of giving Mr Stride three.
And while previous contests have seen dirty tricks there is a serious question mark over whether it could happen this time, with the Tories reduced to just 121 MPs.
As one Jenrick Team insider said: “There are far too few MPs to play games with anymore. Literally, a swing of one or two could be the difference between staying in or not staying. It’s true b*****ks to suggest we lent votes because we didn’t.
“Kemi was expected to come second [Badenoch] and we were planning our messages around having gained momentum to win. We needed as many MPs as we could so there was no interest in lending votes.”
Others have suggested that the votes were lent by Team Baidainach. But if that is true they have done her campaign a huge disservice by landing her a distant second, especially as Patel’s vote is expected to split mainly between Mr Jenrick and James Cleverly.
Going into the last four, Ms Badenoch could now be struggling for third place.
So while Tory leadership elections are almost always characterized by intrigue, this particular leadership election is perhaps the most unusual of the lot – a fairly clean contest.
