Brexiteer Tory MP who increased majority to run as Chairman of 1922 Committee

A Conservative MP who increased his majority in the general election is to run to be chairman of the 1922 Committee, The Telegraph can reveal.

Bob Blackman, who was re-elected for Harrow East, has thrown his hat into the ring to lead the powerful committee of backbench Tory MPs, which plays a crucial role in organising the process to choose the next party leader.

Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, a veteran MP and longstanding member of the committee’s executive, has also told The Telegraph that he intends to run for the chairmanship.

Mr Blackman has been the MP for his north London constituency since 2010.

In Thursday’s election, he pulled off the rare feat of increasing his majority, even as the Conservatives lost 251 seats across the rest of the country. His majority increased from 8,170 in 2019 to 11,680.

‘It was sheer hard work’

Speaking to The Telegraph on Saturday, Mr Blackman said: “It was sheer hard work, slogging nine hours a day for six weeks during the election campaign, knocking on doors, talking to people, running a very local campaign, I have to say.

“That’s what I do every weekend, out on the doors talking to people, Saturdays and Sundays, meeting people, and loads of people said to me on the doorstep, ‘I’m voting for you but I wouldn’t vote for anyone else if they were standing for your party’.”

Mr Blackman said that he had benefited from the Tories achieving a “wipeout” of Labour in council elections two years ago, which “gave us the building blocks”.

He also acknowledged that he had been aided by other factors. 

“Personal vote is important, but I got more or less the same vote as I got in 2019,” he said. 

“What did happen, of course, was that there was a remarkable drop in the Labour vote [from 18,765 in 2019 to 13,786].

“Obviously, we had all the parties standing, whereas in 2019 we didn’t, so you get a fragmentation of the vote.”

In terms of where the Conservatives go next, Mr Blackman said that because he is planning to stand as chairman of the 1922, “I’m not going to make comments about who should be our leader or the direction of travel.”

However, he said that the party’s national campaign had been “disastrous”.

“The national campaign went off the rails from the word go,” he said.

 “Whatever anyone’s view of Rishi [Sunak], the fact that he was announcing the election in the pouring rain, it just set a scene unfortunately. And then there were mistakes made along the way which we know.

“The issues over leaving D-Day early, that was bad news on our doorsteps, I know. The betting scandal was really upsetting to people, and quite rightly.”

He also said that the party had not done enough to “emphasise how well we’ve recovered in terms of the economy”.

The chairman of the 1922 Committee plays a pivotal role in the Conservative Party.

With Sir Graham Brady, the long-standing chairman of the committee, having left the Commons, the vacancy has arisen.

The committee helps organise leadership elections, and the chairman is famously the recipient of letters of no confidence which Tory MPs can use to try to change their leader.

Sir Geoffrey, who was first elected in 1992 and won the newly drawn up seat of North Cotswold on Thursday, is also standing to be chairman.

Chairman with authority

He said the Conservatives needed a “chairman with the authority to be able to get the party together to be able to hear every view and then take everything forward”.

“I’ve been around since 1992, I’ve seen the debacle in 1997, I was there in 2010 when Cameron tried to get rid of the 22, I’ve been through all the seminal events with Theresa May, with Boris, with Liz Truss and the election of Rishi... I’ve been there at all the crucial moments for a long time” he said.

A timeline has not yet been set for electing a new chairman and executive, but Mr Blackman said he thought it would make sense to do it on Tuesday, when all MPs will be in Westminster to elect the Speaker and be sworn in.

“The 1922 executive will decide what the process will be to elect the new leader,” he said. 

“That will be agreed with the party board and then the starting gun will be fired in terms of the leadership contest.”

An important question will be how long the process should be, with some senior Tories calling for a longer contest so the party can conduct a full post-mortem on why it lost and properly test the leadership candidates.

Another matter to be resolved is how long Mr Sunak stays on as party leader. 

The State Opening of Parliament and King’s Speech will take place on July 17, with Parliament expected to go into recess at the end of the month.

Because Prime Minister’s Questions do not take place on the day of the King’s Speech, it is possible that if Parliament goes into recess on July 30, there may be only one PMQs before the summer break, on July 24.

If a relatively concise leadership process is opted for, Mr Sunak could face Sir Keir Starmer across the dispatch box on July 24 and remain leader until his replacement is chosen later in the summer.

However, if the party goes for a longer process concluding in the autumn, he may wish to hand over to an interim leader.

Mr Blackman said that Tory MPs owed it to Mr Sunak to “give him the opportunity to [resign] in an appropriate way”.

“If I’m elected as chairman of the 1922, then I will obviously be conducting the process for who is elected, and then helping whoever is elected as our leader to transform the party back into a fighting machine ready to take Labour on, not just in the next general election, but also in the local elections which will come next year and the year after in the build-up.

“The way that we win back power is through local government, and we’ve got to get fit and ready for that.”