Conservative Party (UK) leadership election, 2022, Take Two

[Хahar 🤔]

So I guess even if BoJo reaches 100 votes, Sunak would still beat him handily in a runoff among MPs?

I think that’s the prelude to one of the peak-chaos options:
> Sunak and Johnson advance to the run-off
> Sunak handily wins the indicative vote, with the support of most MPs.
> Party members ignore this, and cheerily hand the leadership back to Boris.

If that happens, expect a fresh round of party disunity. Several MPs are threatening to leave the party if this happens, so don’t be surprised if things stay absolutely febrile.

If they really were stupid enough to bring Mr Blobby back, there would almost certainly be some sort of split in the party. Most likely a splinter group rather than a full-blown split, but even that would be about the last thing they need right now. The other issue is that Johnson is still under investigation by a Commons committee that has the power to suspend him and if it does so for more than ten days he will face a recall petition in his constituency.

This wouldn't be the first time that he became Prime Minister with dozens of Conservative MPs opposing him, but the threat of removing the whip and preventing his opponents from standing again as Conservative candidates doesn't really work when there's no hope of being reelected anyway.

The best result, of course, would be his becoming prime minister and then being subject to a recall petition triggering a by-election that he would certainly lose, thereby precipitating a constitutional crisis. I'm not sure I've been good enough this year to deserve that, but one can only hope.

However, Rishi is the safest choice, and I expect even now that he can keep Starmer to a minority government.

My man, the Conservative Party is thirty-five points behind in the polls. You don't have to keep dooming about the SNP. It's okay. It's over.

[Хahar 🤔]

Does anyone think a candidate named Rishi Sunak (MP from rural Yorkshire) would win a congressional seat in rural Ohio?

Yes, absolutely. A senatorial candidate whose wife is Indian is going to win rural Ohio by a large margin next month. The right-wing candidate for Senate in Alaska is white, but she has a Congolese name. In 2014, Neel Kashkari won easily in remote rural California (topping out at 72.8% in Modoc County) while being roundly rejected in the parts of the state where Indians live. A Turk who is at least a nominal Muslim will win rural Pennsylvania this year.

There are differences in the way that race works between America and Britain, but these counterfactuals just don't hold up. Republican voters are perfectly happy to vote for candidates of any race.

[Хahar 🤔]

I fail to see how you prove your point. There’s a difference between voting for a Republican nominee in the general then in the primary.

As others have alluded to, I don't recall Rishi Sunak having won a primary election in Richmond (Yorks).

My point still stands. Just looking at raw numbers, America has a *much* larger minority population then the UK, yet the Republican Party currently has less then 10 minority members in congress.

This is because the Republican Party is repulsive to minorities, not because Republican voters are unwilling to vote for minority candidates. There is a difference in that distinction.

[Хahar 🤔]

I've kind of changed my opinon on Sunak, he's currently rich but he wasn't realy born into it. His family background is solidy upper-middle class, and I think that probably allows him to appele better to the electorate than someone born a plutocrat.

It's true that he wasn't born into obscene wealth. He has it now because he married into it. Somehow I doubt that that makes him seem like a man of the people.