Featured Photo: Photo source. License. I edited a title on to the photo.
Note: James Cleverley pulled out of the Leadership race on 4th June and so has been removed from this blogpost.
Mark Harper
Harper has been Conservative MP for Forest of Dean since 2005. Currently he holds no notable positions within government, simply serving as an MP for his constituency. He is another of the underdogs of the race who are unlikely to win. He announced his run for leader on 30th May.
Previously though Harper has held a number of positions in the former Cameron government, although not Cabinet. Under the Cameron government he was Parliamentary Secretary to the Cabinet Office, then went on to Minister of State for Immigration and later for Disabled People. His last major role in government was Chief Whip of the House of Commons.
In his constituency Harper campaigned for sending children with learning difficulties to non-mainstream schools. In his MP position Harper has always voted for military intervention on matters of foreign affairs. During the Con-Lib coalition government, Harper worked alongside Deputy PM Nick Clegg within the Cabinet Office on reforming the voting system, changing it from First past the Post to an Alternative Vote system, as well as changing the shapes of constituencies and implementing a fixed-term parliament system. Harper was not very supportive of changing the FPTP system to an Alternative Vote system which was part of the bargain of the coalition government with the Liberal Democrats, in the end though changing the voting system from FPTP to Alternative Vote was rejected in a referendum, the constituency changes which would have benefited the Conservatives were also not implemented, but the Fixed-Term Parliament Act was.
Within the Public Bodies Bill in 2010, Harper defended the clauses that allowed selling and leasing of public forests in England, despite the large Oak forest within his own constituency of which it is named after, much of the public in his constituency didn’t support it. In the end the government removed the forestry clauses from the bill. Harper’s time as Immigration Minister ended in hilarious disaster, not making many significant changes and in the end resigning over his self-employed cleaner being an illegal immigrant. As Minister for Disabled People Harper was criticized and questioned over backlogs and delays of the new Personal Independent Payment system meant to replace DLA. Although before leaving office as Minister for Disabled People he successfully worked to significantly reduce the PIP backlog.
On BREXIT Harper has criticized his rivals as failures and said if he were to become leader, he would appoint a new Cabinet to work on a new BREXIT Deal. He does not agree leaving without a deal and he also believes leaving by the deadline of 31st October is unrealistic and should be extended and that the EU needs to be brought back to the negotiating table. Harper was a supporter of remaining in the EU during the referendum. Although he does not agree with a no-deal, he has not directly ruled it out.
On other pledges Harper also wants to reduce taxes and spend more money on education as well as reforming apprenticeships and further education.
As of typing this Harper has the backing of 6 MPs, they are…
- David Evennett
- Steve Double
- Jackie Doyle-Price
- Luke Hall
- Scott Mann
- William Wragg
Sam Gyimah
Gyimah has been Conservative MP for East Surrey since 2010. He has held a number of positions in government, both under the former Cameron government as well as the May Government. He has as of yet not held a position in Cabinet. His last government position was Universities Minister, although he resigned it in November 2018 over May’s handling of a BREXIT Deal and is currently just serving as an MP in Westminster.
His positions under the former Cameron government have included Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Prime Minister, Lord Commissioner of the Treasury, Parliamentary Secretary for the Constitution and finally Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Childcare and Education. Under the May government he was Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Prisons and Probation before becoming Universities Minister and later resigning.
Gyimah has given his support for non-bank alternatives to business finances and he was the first member of parliament to call for credit-easing to help Britain’s economic recovery. Gyimah also played a part in filibustering a bill to make the teaching of first-aid in secondary schools’ compulsory. He also filibustered the Sexual Offences Pardon Bill, a bill that aimed to pardon those convicted of since abolished offences under sodomy laws, Gyimah played a part in filibustering it due to his worry that men who had raped other men or who had sex with underage men would also be pardoned, he instead supported an amendment that only auto-pardons those who have since died, while those living would have to go through a disregard process by contacting the Home Office. Gyimah has shown strong support for LGBT equality and same-sex marriage during his time in parliament including voting in favour of laws that are pro-LGBT and same-sex marriage.
On BREXIT Gyimah was a supporter of remaining in the EU and in 2019 he created a group in parliament called “Right to Vote” which advocates on holding a referendum on any BREXIT Withdrawal Agreement passed by parliament. If he becomes leader, he has promised to hold a referendum on any passed deal/agreement on leaving the EU, he is in favour of the referendum having two questions, the first question being Leave or Remain and the 2nd being May’s deal or No Deal.
Thank you for reading this final part about the Conservative Leadership candidates. Out of all these a winner should be chosen at some point in July and then soon after become Prime Minister.
In other political goings-on today is the Peterborough by-election, where we may see the new BREXIT Party pick up their first seat in the House of Commons. Although Labour does have a somewhat good chance of holding the seat and perhaps the Conservatives may even get in a surprise win… Heck! May even the Lib Dems will get in, crazy times. Whatever the outcome, it is likely to keep the bottoms of the two main parties clenched. We should have the result of that by the early hours of Friday morning.