Rishi Sunak will not remain as Conservative leader beyond the summer, an ally has said, amid internal divisions within the party over how long it should take to select a new leader.
The party faces the possibility of having to appoint an interim leader if the campaign continues for several more months, and senior members of the party are concerned that far-right populist Nigel Farage could become de facto opposition leader if the campaign drags on.
Conservative MPs including Iain Duncan Smith, Nick Timothy and George Freeman have said the party will move the process slowly, potentially dragging it out until the end of the year.
Mr Sunak, who was forced to step down as chancellor following Labour’s landslide victory in last week’s general election, is thought to intend to stay on as prime minister until the leadership contest gets underway in earnest in the summer, but is not expected to stay on beyond that, including through the party conference in October and the expected budget.
The former prime minister is ready to accept an orderly transition and implement a plan to hold the new government to account, but believes it will be difficult to continue doing so in the autumn.
Mr Sunak will form a temporary shadow cabinet to challenge the Labour government in the House of Commons before the summer recess, after 11 Conservative ministers lost their seats in the election.
A protracted election campaign could force the party to appoint another interim leader, perhaps someone like Mr Sunak’s former deputy, Oliver Dowden, or a senior figure like former leader Duncan Smith. “This is a very undesirable situation,” one MP said. “Why fight over a leader?”
Another Conservative MP said delaying the election would give Reform Party MPs like Farage an “open target” to position themselves as an opposition to Labour.
But many lawmakers believe the party needs to conduct a thorough audit of election data and a thorough investigation before the campaign begins in earnest. These lawmakers support a process that would see the campaign not begin until the party convention in October.
Former minister Freeman told the BBC that the campaign should continue for at least six months. “I think it’s really important that we don’t rush into a leadership election now. We need six months of honest assessment of the different constituencies we’ve lost and why – not ‘what has Boris done?’ [Johnson] “It’s not ‘Did I do something wrong?’ or ‘What did Liz Truss do wrong?’ but ‘What voter base have we lost?'” he said.
“I hope this conference will be a serious conference for our own renewal and a place to honestly ask those questions.”
Another former minister, Kevin Hollinrake, told GB News the election should “start in the autumn, probably around September, and we should have a leader chosen by the end of the year. I don’t think there’s any need to rush it.”
The final schedule must then be approved by the remaining 121 Conservative MPs, with a view to electing a new chair of the backbench 1922 Committee within days. The committee’s two remaining members, Geoffrey Clifton-Brown and Bob Blackman, are standing for chair.
“One of the problems is that the committee literally doesn’t exist because all but two of its members have lost their seats – Eddie Hughes and Mark Spencer, who were the potential chairs – both lost their seats,” one senior Conservative source said. “So we can’t even make plans at the moment.”
Conservative members thought to be preparing to run include former immigration secretary Robert Jenrick, former home secretary Priti Patel, former security secretary Tom Tugendhat and former business secretary Kemi Badenoch.
MPs say former Home Secretary Suella Braverman, a key figure on the right, is losing support for Mr Jenrick.
Ms Braverman is due to address Popular Conservatism’s “Start the Rebuild” conference via video link on Tuesday, despite leading members of the Conservative party – Ms Truss, Ranil Jayawardena, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Simon Clarke – losing their seats in the election.
