Former Conservative minister Paul Scully slammed the unexpected results from the latest leadership ballot, saying the public are asking MPs: “What have you done?”
On Wednesday, Conservative MPs voted for which of the three remaining leadership candidates they wanted to go through to the final round of the contest, where party members choose the Tory leader.
In a surprise twist, shadow home secretary James Cleverly was voted out, despite having been the frontrunner a day earlier – he was seen as a more centrist figure within the party compared to his rivals.
It means shadow communities secretary Kemi Badenoch and former immigration minister Robert Jenrick – both on the right of the parliamentary party – will battle it out to replace Rishi Sunak until ballots close at the end of the month.
And judging from his thread on the social media platform X on Thursday night, Scully, a former minister for London who stepped down as an MP this year, thinks this is a major mistake.
He said it was “time” the Tories realise they lost the election “because of perceived lack of competence and direction”.
Scully added: “For 97 days an absence of activity from the Tories & amateur Labour performance has led to a 1% difference in the polls.”
But, he claimed: “Yesterday’s leadership ballot will have woken people up to the fact the Tories haven’t passed the second stage of rebuilding - denial. (I’m ahead of them; stage 3, anger!)”
Scully tried to seek the Tory Party’s nomination for the 2023 London mayoral election but did make the shortlist, despite at one time being seen as the frontrunner.
Referencing that saga in his posts on X, he wroter: “Our London mayoral selection process wasn’t supposed to be a dry run for a bigger stage.”
He also claimed Cleverly and another ousted leadership candidate Tom Tugendhat were “fishing in one pool” for votes, while Badenoch and Jenrick were looking in another.
“To cut out one philosophical choice denies members a real choice about how to rebuild,” he said.
His comments come after centrist organisation, the Tory Reform Group, announced it would not be endorsing either of the hard-right candidates remaining in the race on Wednesday.
Scully continued: “Denied by MPs considering this to be a game, however, it transpired with vote lending or individuals trying to second guess the result. The members will be all the poorer for that and the party’s fortune hangs in the balance.
“We’ll see how Kemi [and] Rob frame this and deal with the situation but 100% of the people outside the party I’ve spoken to since, have taken a particular view...”
The former MP attached a gif from the 2017 film John Wick: Chapter 2, of Winston (played by Ian McShane) saying: “What have you done?”
Senior Conservatives believe Cleverly was kicked out of the leadership by mistake, theorising his own supporters voted for Jenrick to oust Badenoch from the race.
Sources from within the party told HuffPost UK that it’s likely “some pro-Cleverly people thought he was in and tried to be clever”.