Crispin Blunt

Conservative Party | Reigate

Reigate Conservatives vote for Cameron then Clarke

MP returns to the front bench as party whip

Crispin Blunt, MP for Reigate, today declared the result of his ballot of local party members.

 After Crispin Blunt’s candidate of choice, Sir Malcolm Rifkind, withdrew from the race for the Conservative leadership last week he asked his local party members to rank the remaining four candidates in a snap postal ballot.

With over 820 ballot papers returned by midday today, representing over 55% of the membership of the Reigate and Banstead Conservative Association,  the results were unequivocal. 49.2% of first preferences were for David Cameron and 30.0% for Ken Clarke, 14.2% were for David Davis and 5.6% for Liam Fox. Weighting the result by preferences leaves David Cameron even further in the lead, with over 80% of Reigate members ranking him their first or second choice followed by Ken Clarke with 51.2% of members ranking him first or second. The equivalent figures for David Davis and Liam Fox were 40.6% and 26.4% respectively.

Crispin Blunt commented: “This is a decisive verdict from the Reigate Association members in favour of David Cameron. In the last fortnight he has powerfully caught the imagination of the party and if he is finally successful, as these figures imply, there is every prospect he will also be able to catch the imagination of the country and transform the electoral prospects of the Conservative Party.

“I have today accepted the invitation of David Maclean MP, the Opposition Chief Whip, to return to the front bench as a party whip. In these circumstances in would be inappropriate to formally declare how I intend to vote in the leadership ballots today and on Thursday. However, I am very grateful to all the members of the Reigate and Banstead Conservative association who took the trouble to respond so promptly to my poll. Their views appear to reflect what is being seen up and down the country"