Veteran Tory MP Bob Blackman elected chair of 1922 committee

Veteran Tory MP Bob Blackman has been elected chair of the backbench 1922 committee, helping start the clock for a Conservative leadership contest as the party holds a postmortem on last week’s election defeat.

Blackman, MP for Harrow East, was chosen by 61 MPs — roughly half of the Tory parliamentary party — in a contest fought against fellow veteran backbencher Geoffrey Clifton-Brown.

The newly elected chair, who successfully forced the previous government to back down on plans for a crackdown on rough sleepers proposed by former home secretary and leadership hopeful Suella Braverman, said the appointment meant the party could start to rebuild itself.

“I am delighted that we can start rebuilding our parliamentary party,” Blackman said, addressing the much-depleted group of fellow Tory MPs.

Blackman’s election is likely to kick off a protracted contest to replace ousted prime minister and current Tory leader Rishi Sunak. The race is expected to conclude in the autumn following a “listening exercise” to determine where the party fell short.

The 1922 contest featured hangovers from the Tories’ long stint in power, including the customary bust up involving the right flank of the party.

Mark Francois, a leading Eurosceptic Conservative MP, stormed out of the committee room after missing the vote. “The 1922 competency levels have reached a new low which is saying something. This election is bent.”

Party officials had messaged MPs to tell them voting would conclude at 6pm, but ballots closed half an hour earlier. This also caught out both shadow chancellor Jeremy Hunt and father of the house Sir Edward Leigh.

Both Blackman and Clifton-Brown expressed dismay at Francois’s tantrum, aware that the Conservatives faced a difficult path to the next election, including the challenge of unifying the party during a five-year stint in opposition.

Former party chair Richard Holden left quietly after the 1922 chair vote having resigned from his post the previous day, stating he would feed into rather than lead a post-election review.

Potential leadership contenders darted in and out of the room, including former immigration minister Robert Jenrick.

Though Jenrick has refused to comment on whether he will stand in the contest, he told the BBC on Sunday he was supportive of a probing examination of the party’s failure.

“The first step for the party is to have a proper honest diagnosis about what’s gone wrong,” Jenrick said.

Privately, Tory MPs expressed doubts over the wisdom of an election contest dragging past summer and even whether the party’s members should be allowed to vote. The parliamentary party is more centrist than the Tory membership.

One front bench Tory MP said the party needed to expedite the process and elect a new leader.

But other Tory MPs are wary that hastening the process — for example, by excluding members — would hurt the party’s finances ahead of an annual conference in September that is expected to feature an exodus of commercial sponsors.

Many businesses flocked to Labour’s annual conference last year sensing the changing electoral tides.