Trusting Truss: Conservative MPs’ Voting Preferences in the (First) British Conservative Party Leadership Election of 2022

Jeffery, David ORCID: 0000-0002-9064-5544, Heppell, Timothy ORCID: 0000-0001-9851-6993, Roe-Crines, Andrew ORCID: 0000-0002-6878-5030 and Butler, Chris ORCID: 0000-0003-0502-897X (2023) Trusting Truss: Conservative MPs’ Voting Preferences in the (First) British Conservative Party Leadership Election of 2022. Representation, 59 (4). pp. 555-572.

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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00344893.2023.2231469

Abstract

This paper identifies the candidate preferences of Conservative parliamentarians in the final parliamentary ballot and the membership ballot of the Conservative Party leadership election of 2022. We code each parliamentarians’ candidate preference within a wider dataset on the parliamentary Conservative Party (PCP) and test a range of hypotheses covering the following: a). personal factors relating to gender, sexuality, ethnicity and education b). political factors, relating to constituency marginality and type, as well as prior support for Johnson, and c). ideological factors, covering for example, attitudes towards Brexit, cultural debates, levelling up, economic liberalism, net zero and Covid restrictions. Our research findings demonstrate that despite common media narratives at the time of the party leadership election, variables capturing loyalty or opposition to Johnson did not structure patterns of support for candidates in either round. A parliamentarian's position on levelling up, as well as the UK's membership of, and relationship with, the European Union (based on whether they were remainers, leavers, or a member of the European Research Group) were more important in structuring support. However broader measures of ideology, as evidenced through the membership of extra-parliamentary groups, was found not to be important.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Conservative party, Prime Ministerial Leadership, Leadership Elections, Liz Truss
Divisions:	Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Histories, Languages and Cultures
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	13 Jun 2023 15:59
Last Modified:	13 Nov 2023 03:08
DOI:	10.1080/00344893.2023.2231469
Related URLs:	Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3170896