Approximately 10% of Conservative MPs have announced plans to retire at the next election, sparking suggestions that they are jumping ship in the expectation of losing the next election. Having resigned as justice secretary over bullying claims, Dominic Raab is the latest high-profile Tory politician to confirm they are serving their final term in parliament. MPs fear that the collapse of the Conservative party’s 2019 coalition of voters could see them lose seats in the “blue wall” to the Liberal Democrats, while Labour appears back on the march in its traditional northern heartlands and is bullish about progress in Scotland. However, it isn’t just veteran politicians who have risen through the ranks and do not fancy a spell on the opposition benches or who want to boost their own income that are deciding to put politics behind them. A host of those viewed as “rising stars” with relatively short tenures in the Commons have also decided to hang up their white-and-green striped lanyards, including the levelling-up minister Dehenna Davison and 1922 Committee vice-chair William Wragg. So far, 36 Conservative MPs have declared their intention to quit – about 10% of the parliamentary party. By comparison, only 12 Labour MPs have done so. Not included in the figures are “independents” who were elected as Tories – the former health secretary Matt Hancock, ex-chief whip Chris Pincher and the recently removed chair of the culture select committee, Julian Knight. There are also around 12 Conservative MPs who are expected to step down from their current seats, but have been deemed “displaced” by Conservative central headquarters (CCHQ) by boundary changes, so can stand elsewhere. The overrepresentation of Tories among retirees is in part because the party told all MPs they had to decide by 5 December last year whether to stand again. “There’s more early notice on the Conservative side than you’d normally have, because of the request by CCHQ,” said Robert Hayward, a Conservative peer and elections expert. “There are more younger people [retiring] than usual. I think that’s discovering they don’t like parliament – because it’s been particularly unpleasant and disruptive in a way that it hasn’t been for many a long year – and deciding against continuing in it.”
Hayward expects that the number of Tory retirees “will be above average – but not exceptionally”, in part due to the turbulent nature of politics since 2015, meaning that some MPs have “wrapped a political lifetime into one or two parliaments”. It is hard to say whether more Conservatives are jumping ship than in other electoral cycles, because this is the furthest through a full five-year electoral cycle the UK has progressed since the 2010-15 coalition. When Tony Blair was on the brink of power in 1997, 117 MPs stood down. In 2010, in the aftermath of the 2009 expenses scandal, the figure was 149. Across the decades, the average at elections between 1979 and 2015 was 86 retirees. “You nearly always see more going when it looks as if one party’s going to get swept away after a long period in office,” said Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London and author of The Conservative Party After Brexit. “Given that this parliament is likely to run the full five years, it may be a bit too early to say we’re seeing a mass exodus even of younger MPs who reckon they’re about to lose. But if polling continues to look as bad as it currently does for the Tories, then that could well be on the cards.” Senior Tory sources expect the number of their MPs announcing plans to retire at the next election to swell in the coming months. Some do not want to be looked over for promotion and might otherwise be dismissed by the prime minister if he has no reason to appease them. Others are hoping they will secure the promise of a peerage from No 10 before announcing plans to quit the Commons. The first tranche of 19 Tory selections opened last month, and CCHQ plans to have over 100 candidates confirmed by party conference season in October. Those hopeful of selection may find that the process takes some time, however; Michael Howard was said to have been turned down by over 20 constituencies before he was finally adopted as the Tory candidate for Folkestone and Hythe in 1983.