Following its greatest electoral defeat in its history, the Conservative Party is entering the process of electing its new leader. But given the much smaller than usual number of Conservative MPs, their unrepresentative make-up, both in terms of gender and geographical distribution, and their lack of experience, the challenge of electing a unifying Conservative Party leader is a big one, argues Luca Augé.

After the 2019 General Election, the Conservative Party under the leadership Boris Johnson won a landslide of 365 MPs and sat on the government benches. Five years later and that number is now reduced to a third with only 121 MPs. The 2024 General Election was the worst electoral result for the Conservative Party since its foundation in 1834, and Rishi Sunak the first Conservative Leader since John Major in 1997 to switch from Prime Minister to Leader of the Opposition.

The contest to find Sunak’s replacement is in full swing and divisions over the future of the Party are already appearing between the few remaining Conservative big beasts. Six candidates are officially running and are, following the Party’s constitution, all “drawn from those elected to the House of Commons”. By September, the remaining MPs will shortlist four candidates that will make their case at the Conservative Party conference before MPs again narrowing down the list to two candidates. The final step will be for the around 160,000 members to make the final decision and elect the new leader by November 2.

the next Conservative Leader will be drawn from and selected by the smallest ever cohort of MPs in the party’s history as well as elected by a notoriously unrepresentative Party membership.

In practice, this means that the next Conservative Leader will be drawn from and selected by the smallest ever cohort of MPs in the party’s history as well as elected by a notoriously unrepresentative Party membership. The 121 Conservative MPs will play a crucial role in the upcoming weeks and are already being wooed by the different candidates. As the new parliamentary Conservative Party will choose the new leader and influence the direction of the party outside of government, one question remains: who are the 2024 Tories?

Starting with the gender repartition, the 2024 cohort has the same ratio of 24 per cent female and 76 per cent male, as it did after the 2019 General Election. This is much lower than the number of female MPs in Parliament at 40.5 per cent, in the Labour Party at 46 per cent and Liberal Democrats at 45 per cent. The lack of female representation in the Conservative Party has long been a topic of discussion and the 2024 electoral results have done nothing to change it.

Regarding minority ethnic representation, the number of MPs doubled since 2019 and now stands at 12 per cent of the parliamentary party. This still remains below the Labour Party with 16 per cent of minority ethnic MPs and below the estimated 14 per cent of minority ethnic voters in the UK. The Conservative Party likes to boast with having delivered the first British Asian Prime Minister, the first Black Chancellor and the first Muslim Home Secretary. Even if top Conservative jobs have become more diverse, the parliamentary Conservative Party remains less ethnically diverse than the country.

The biggest change between 2019 and 2024 is the geographical distribution, with the party’s centre of gravity moving south. In 2019, half of the MPs represented Southern seats, a fifth Northern seats and another fifth seats in the Midlands with a few seats in Wales and Scotland. The 2024 cohort is well over half made of Southern MPs, a quarter of MPs from the Midlands, only a tenth from the North and a few from Scotland with not a single MP from Wales. On the contrary, the Labour Party and Liberal Democrats are more evenly represented in every nation in Great Britain. The Conservative and Unionist Party may favour the union of the UK, but its 2024 cohort is primarily an English and especially a Southern English party.

Lastly, the parliamentary Conservative Party has lost several of its most experienced members. 75 sitting MPs had already announced their intention not to stand again in 2024, including 22 current and former Secretaries of State. Of the 244 seats lost in the 2024 General Election, 175 were sitting MPs and 11 of those cabinet ministers. Whereas after 2019 around half of MPs had first been elected between 1975 and 2010, around half of MPs now have been first elected since 2017. This means that most Conservative MPs have a relatively short experience as MPs, having known Parliament mostly during the difficult Brexit and Covid years and most have never experienced being in opposition.

The 2024 parliamentary Conservative Party remains male-dominated and less diverse as well as now being more Southern English and less experienced.

The 2024 General Election was a considerable electoral defeat for the Conservative Party and changed the make-up of its parliamentary representation. Next to being much smaller, the 2024 parliamentary Conservative Party is more English and Southern English as well as less experienced than in 2019. Overall, the 2024 parliamentary Conservative Party remains male-dominated and less diverse as well as now being more Southern English and less experienced.

Whoever succeeds Sunak will have the difficult task to rebuild the party, unite its factions and assert its role as main opposition Party.

It is precisely this group of MPs that will constitute the forefront of the party’s parliamentary presence for the years to come and will make the consequential decision over the new leadership in the weeks to come. Whoever succeeds Sunak will have the difficult task to rebuild the party, unite its factions and assert its role as main opposition Party. The make-up of the 2024 Conservative Party in Parliament promises to make this process difficult. Dramatically, a crucial decision for the survival of the UK’s most successful party now depends on a narrower group of 121 MPs.

All articles posted on this blog give the views of the author(s), and not the position of LSE British Politics and Policy, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Image: Pictures of Tory MPs taking part in the three-month contest to succeed Rishi Sunak as Party Leader. Credit: Banner picture is a collage of mugshots of MPs on GOV.UK available under the Open Government Licence v3.0.