A major donor to the Conservatives has threatened to pull funding unless the party overhauls its leadership rules – calling the process “corrupt”.
Peter Cruddas, a leading Boris Johnson ally who had pushed for him to be on the ballot this summer, called for major changes to stop future Tory prime ministers being removed in the same way.
The Tory peer said the current process run by 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers which allows a majority of MPs to oust a PM “stinks”.
“If nothing changes, if Boris goes and this [party] constitution remains the same, I’m not interested [in donating],” Lord Cruddas, who has given more than £3m to the party, told a Tortoise podcast.
He added: “It’s not a personal thing. It’s just the wrong way to run a business. It’s the wrong way to run a political party and it is going to get worse. I can’t give to the party – what they’ve done to Boris is just a catalyst for me to say ‘enough’.”
Lord Cruddas launched a petition to add Johnson to the Tory members’ ballot as an option alongside contenders Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak following the PM’s resignation in July.
Going further, the Tory peer said the way Mr Johnson was ousted by MPs in his own party was “wrong” and “corrupt”, adding: “The whole thing stinks.”
“He has effectively been constructively dismissed by a group of MPs for whatever reason but the problem with that is that it’s going against the electorate and it cannot be right for a political party to be having the tail wagging the dog,” he told the podcast.
Claiming that the 1922 Committee of Tory MPs have too much power and party members do not have enough of it, the Johnson ally said: “You cannot have a cabal of MPs controlling everything, which is what we are having today.”
He added: “The party belongs to the members and I want the members to have a greater say. I want to extricate the 1922 Committee from the Conservative Party.”
Recent polls have found that Tory members still prefer Johnson to Sunak or Truss – who remains the strong favourite to win the contest.
Successive surveys indicate signs of “Johnson nostalgia” and regret at the PM’s political demise over Partygate, and an apparent lack of enthusiasm for either of his would-be successors.
Lord Cruddas claimed the Tory party was now self-destructing. He said: “What you are witnessing today is the self-destruction of the Conservative Party and it has to change.”
The winner of the race will be announced on Monday 5 September, the date when parliament returns, by Sir Graham Brady, chair of the 1922 Committee.
Johnson is expected to visit the Queen at Buckingham Palace or Balmoral to tender his resignation on 6 September, with his successor making the same trip to be invited to form a government.
