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The six contenders for the Conservative leadership have been warned they risk a “yellow card” if they brief the media against their rivals in their bids to replace former prime minister Rishi Sunak.
Bob Blackman, chair of the 1922 committee of backbench Tory MPs, said on Monday that candidates would receive a formal warning before a public statement is issued condemning their behaviour.
“The constant backbiting and attacking colleagues in public and in the media is one of the reasons why the party did so badly in the election,” he said, adding any further rule infringements by candidates would be “extremely detrimental” to their bids.
The move is aimed at preventing a briefing war and the possibility that months of mudslinging could undermine the party’s image following the trauma of its election defeat to Labour on July 4.
Bookmakers’ favourite Kemi Badenoch, former business secretary, launched her campaign on Sunday evening to round out a list of six contenders.
The other contenders are: Dame Priti Patel, former home secretary; James Cleverly, former foreign secretary; Tom Tugendhat, ex-security minister; Mel Stride, former work and pensions secretary; and Robert Jenrick, former immigration minister.
Badenoch, known for her combative style, on Friday accused her rivals of “dirty tricks” after a dossier of comments made on an online blog were shared with journalists.
This included remarks that people who changed the world for good, such as Albert Einstein and Sir Isaac Newton, were “notoriously rude”. Badenoch said on social media site X that the dossier was “petty and puerile”.
One Tory official was sceptical about the “yellow card” system as briefings were anonymous and difficult to police. “Where is the line drawn? Is it acceptable to dredge up their record in office?” they said.
MPs will whittle down the six candidates to four in September ahead of the party’s conference, where they will present themselves in a “beauty contest” to the party’s membership.
Conservative MPs will then narrow the shortlist to two candidates across October. Party members, generally considered to be more rightwing than the Tory parliamentary party, will choose the eventual winner on November 2.
In a sign of the looming battle over the direction of the Conservatives, former Tory MP David Gauke rejoined the party last week to vote in the contest.
Gauke wrote in an article on ConservativeHome, the Tory grassroots website, that following the election the “party looks less of a populist outfit than it did”.
Meanwhile, Tory grandee Lord Michael Heseltine had the whip restored earlier this month after being suspended in May 2019 after he endorsed the Liberal Democrats in that year’s European election.
“It was preposterous that I was ever not considered part of the Conservative party,” the veteran peer told the Financial Times.
He said he was offered back the whip by Baroness Williams, Tory chief whip in the House of Lords, at the time of this month’s election.