Chooses for office fellows replacing Conservative constituents (8)
I believe the answer is:
elements
'constituents' is the definition.
(I know this)
'chooses for office fellows replacing conservative' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'fellows' could be 'men' (fellow can mean a man) and 'men' is found in the answer.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for elements that I've seen before include "Atmospheric forces like wind and rain" , "Basic principles of the weather" , "Rudiments of a subject" , "Constituents, ingredients" , "Nitrogen and oxygen, e.g." .)