The former Chairman of the 1922 committee has said the Conservative Party must consider the constitutional role they play in providing an opposition when deciding the timeframe of the leadership election.
Sir Graham Brady refused to be drawn on who he thought would make the best leader but said he thought the party’s remaining MPs would ‘pull together’ in the face of the recent defeat.
Speaking to GB News, Sir Graham Brady said: “I think we are now in opposition. We're in opposition in a very small parliamentary party. And oddly, I came into Parliament first in 1997 in the shadow of a great big labour landslide.
“My experience then actually, was that the party started to pull together in Parliament. I think we realised there was a lot of work to do. There was a responsibility to provide a proper opposition and to hold government to account.
“There were very few people to do the work, even fewer now. And I think that we also started to spend a lot of time together, and started to realise we had more in common than we had that divided us. So I hope the same thing will happen again.
“The [1922 committee] election was done quite quickly, because I think it was important that we have people to speak up for the parliamentary party. I'm obviously not involved, and I agreed to go and count the votes because they wanted an impartial person to count the votes. So I was there when all of that happened.
“What caused it was that the whips, I think in an effort to be helpful, had put a message out saying what the timing of the vote was. Now I think the timing of the vote had changed between the first message and the whips putting that message out, and then the 22 had changed it. And of course, the 22 is completely independent from the whips. so I don't think there's any malice in it.
“I've always said I think when the party is in government, there is a problem with [the membership having a vote], because you're choosing a Prime Minister, because the parliamentary party can obviously throw a Prime Minister out, because a vote of no confidence will do that. So I think there's a discord in that situation.
“The Constitution says that the parliamentary Conservative Party has to provide two candidates to the members in the country to choose between, unless there is only one.
“If you only have one candidate in an election, that person wins, and it's the same in a general election as well. But the constitution of the party makes it very clear what we have to do. And I'm afraid the constitution of the party is very difficult to change, and would take a long time to change.
“I know all of the candidates, obviously, I think a lot of them have great strengths, and I have my own preferences. I think I'll keep my counsel on that for the time being.
“ I think it's perfectly proper when people say the party has to have a proper debate and think about what went wrong and think about how we can do better. We also need to remember that we have a constitutional duty and we have to provide a proper opposition, and it's going to be much needed, because the government's majority is far too big to be healthy.
“I'm not going to try to dictate a time frame. It's not my job to be involved in that now.What I do think is critically important is that my colleagues, my successors, Bob Blackman as chairman of the 1922 committee, the executive and the party board, are cognisant of that duty, which is not just to think about ourselves and think about the kind of debate that might benefit the Conservative Party.
“We do have an absolute constitutional duty as the parliamentary opposition, His Majesty's Official Opposition, is the job that my colleagues in the House of Commons are required to do, and so we mustn't lose sight of that.
“I thought it was astonishing a few days ago seeing Keir Starmer saying how welcome it was to have such a huge majority. I think any wise politician will recognise that too big a majority is bad for their own party, is bad for the government, and it's certainly bad for the country.
“What you need to have is a parliament where some things can be in contention, where there is some question, and the more there is a challenge from the opposition side, the less the government benches themselves will feel entitled to provide that opposition.”
WATCH ABOVE.
