Letter to the Leadership Candidates re. Party Reform

 3rd August 2022

To Candidates for Leadership of

The Conservative Party individually addressed.

Dear Candidate,

Re: Party Reform

As a candidate for the Leadership of the Conservative Party you may be aware that the Campaign For Conservative Democracy is campaigning for greater democracy within the Conservative Party.   We have Six Essential Reforms which I show below:

Six Essential Reforms

1) The National Convention should be replaced by an Annual General Meeting to which all Party members are invited.

2) The Chairman of the Party Board, Deputy Chairman, Treasurer, Chairman of the Candidates Committee and Chairman of the Policy Forum should be elected by and accountable to Party members, and present annual reports to the Annual General Meeting.

3) Constituency Associations should have the right to determine who their Parliamentary Candidate should be, with an advisory role for CCHQ who would conduct due diligence. There would be safeguards for Constituencies where the membership is below a certain level.

4) Motions for debate should be re-instated at the Party Conference and/or at the Spring Forum.

5) The Party Constitution should be capable of being changed at a General Meeting of the Party, by Party members on the basis of One Member One Vote with a 60% majority. 

6) Four candidates should be put to the membership in a Leadership election and voting done on a preferential basis with the winner being the first to obtain more than 50% of the vote.

You will know how divided the Party is at the moment and how we urgently need to repair the damage that has been done and we believe that our reforms are part of a programme that can start to bring the Party back together.

We would like you to consider adopting these Reforms as part of your leadership bid.

We will at the same time as writing this letter publish it on our web site and on 19th August  we will publish any reply from you or if no reply received we will indicate accordingly.   Please consider this and let me know your response as soon as possible.  

Good luck with your candidacy and for the sake of the Party I hope that the best candidate wins.

With best wishes

John E. Strafford

Chairman