Tory leadership elections help the caged birds sing
Leadership elections are integral to the Conservative Party's role as the bulwark against the emergence of a genuinely conservative force in British politics.
Leadership elections are integral to the Conservative Party's role as the bulwark against the emergence of a genuinely conservative force in British politics. By removing the incumbent leader and forcing the candidate replacements into a public beauty pageant, leadership elections allow the betrayed party members – duped by the last leader – to believe that this time it might be different. Candidates, after all, must say the right things to win, and they thus give hope to the social conservatives and fans of governmental competence who make up the majority of the party's membership and broader electorate.
Leadership elections also tempt onlookers to pick favourites, a process that emotionally ties members and voters to the success of the winning candidate. Those whose preferred choice wins are psychologically committed to the success and defence of the new leader (for nobody wants to admit to having supported a boob), while those whose contestant loses feel an obligation 'to unite behind' the winning candidate (for anything else would be to put personal feelings before party and nation). Leadership elections are, in other words, one of the means by which Tory Central Office convinces the fools who pay membership fees and the conservative majority in Britain to suspend their disbelief for long enough to vote for a party that has by its actions shown itself to be neither conservative nor competent. (The other main tactic is ginning up Red Scares about Labour at election time.)
Most Tory leadership elections are a game of three card monte: in theory there is a choice, but somehow you always end up picking the card the dealer wants. All the candidates are drawn from the Conservative Party's internal coalition, limiting the chances of getting a real conservative. In the early 90s, it was a coalition of Thatcherites who claimed to be Eurosceptic but said Britain should remain inside the EU so it could be 'reformed from within', and Thatcherites who openly supported further EU integration and wanted to 'lead from within'. In the 2000s, the coalition was of those who wanted the Conservative Party to exactly replicate New Labour except with marginally lower taxes, and the wing that largely agreed with that economic position, but on cultural issues wanted to stand athwart social history and ineffectually plead that everybody please slow down. And anyway, whichever wing supplied the leader had to compromise with the other to keep the internal coalition together, so it made little difference, despite the occasional breakout of media-pleasing disagreement.
This time, however, the contest is likely to be more open and the result more unpredictable than usual. Firstly, the party is now broadly divided into three, rather than two, camps, and the third camp is incompatible with the first two. There is the Cameroon wing – Blairites with a penchant for austerity – who find unconscionable the idea of fighting a 'culture war', which they erroneously believe uncouth social conservatives started and which would go away of its own accord if only the adults in the room were put back in charge. Then there is the libertarian wing of the party. Apostles of this wing can be identified because during every interview, speech, Parliamentary debate or hustings, they recite a variation of their creed: "I believe in Free Market, the God Almighty, the creator of everything good. I believe in Saint Margaret of Grantham, Free Market's Daughter in Britain, our Lady, who was conceived by Adam Smith and born of the Virgin Hayek, who suffered under Arthur Scargill, was crucified by Heseltine, Major and Howe, resigned for our sins, and now resides in heaven, seated at Free Market's invisible hand."
Crucially, however, the seachange in British politics has added a third grouping: Red Wallers, who have grasped that the existing two wings are equally unelectable, and that Boris won the biggest Conservative Party majority since 1987 with a town and shire coalition that was patriotic, unafraid to fight the culture wars from a conservative redoubt, and yet willing to tax to spend on those left behind by our country's disastrous obsession with neoliberal economics and its twin, globalism. How this will mix with the libertarians on spending, or with the Cameroons on cultural issues, is anybody's guess.
The second reason this contest is particularly large and unpredictable is the paucity of talent and competency in the parliamentary party. Long gone are the days when the front benches of both major parties had serious intellects and politicians of gravitas sitting on them. Few now seem as though they would make it far past the hundred pound question on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, and so looking around at the competition, they all think they’re in with a chance.
Tom Tugendhat, for instance, should have a large, red ‘DISQUALIFIED FOR REASONS OF INSANITY’ stamp slapped over his CV with extreme prejudice. Ignoring for a moment his position on the EU and cultural matters, he is perhaps best remembered for his speech to the Commons upon the Anglo-American withdrawal from Afghanistan. It was beautifully crafted and poignantly delivered nonsense, pleading for Britain to stay in Kabul, despite the Army having suffered a humiliating defeat in Helmand and having no capacity to remain in Afghanistan without the protection of the Americans. Why? To finish the job, of course. Never mind that the full force of a vastly more powerful western nation had had two decades to build a sustainable government in Afghanistan, and failed.
Mr Tugendhat has since followed this lunacy by demanding Britain go to war with Russia over who controls a portion of Eastern Ukraine. Of course, he uses military synonyms (‘imposing a no fly zone’ and ‘breaking the blockade in the Black Sea’), but going to war is what he means. Tobias Ellwood should be disqualified for the same reasons. Luckily, neither man is considered a likely winner of the British nuclear codes. Jeremy Hunt, the great white hope of the pro-EU, centrist liberals, would probably split the blandly centrist vote with Mr Tugendhat until one was eliminated. If Mr Hunt survives until the final two, it seems likely that the membership would vote against him on principle, given his EUphile pedigree. And let us hope so, because a general election contest between him and Keir Sterner is likely to be as interesting as watching concrete set.
Penny Mordaunt, on the other hand, also of the Cameroon Wing, is far more popular. Yet on the trans-rights debate, she has demonstrated that she knows less about biology than the average eleven-year-old. Which is about the level of Liz Truss’s thinking on everything. Just that tiny bit too bonkers for it to go unnoticed, Ms Truss gained popularity while her job was signing trade deals with emerging economies that could hardly believe any nation would give away so much for so little in return; however, her ascent to the Foreign Office has exposed her as a vacuous poseur.
On a trip to Moscow to tell the Russians the same thing we had already told them, and they rejected, multiple times, she was so busy taking Margaret Thatcher tribute Instagram shots that she didn’t have time to learn her brief. This resulted in her demanding that Sergey Lavrov, the Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs, order Russian troops to withdraw from two regions inside Russia. For the same reason, she was more recently, at a Foreign Affairs Select Committee, reduced to stammering bafflement by Chris Bryant, a man unlikely to have stretched the IQ bell curve rightward. Not so much the Iron Lady as Tin Lizzy.
Ben Wallace, the current favourite, has garnered greater support for the way he has dealt with the Ukraine Crisis. Nevertheless, as Secretary of State for Defence, he has shown no sign of making any progress on the Ministry of Defence’s procurement omnishambles, or the Army’s recruitment problems, two of the most pressing issues of the British State. Mr Wallace does have the advantage, though, of having demonstrated no policy preferences outside military matters. He therefore has few ideological opponents and the freedom to tailor his message as it suits him. His countenance is also neat and serious, the antithesis of Boris Johnson. Likewise Sajid Javid and Rishi Sunak. But surely even the Tory Party would not put its electoral success during a withering cost of living crisis into the hands of filthy rich former investment bankers with a preference for massive public spending cuts.
Even farther toward the libertarian edges of the party is Steve Baker, who seems to have decided that he’s mad as hell with all this taxation and public sector malarkey and isn’t going to put up with it anymore. He has support among his ERG brethren, but the electability of Meghan Markle. Poor Michael Gove, who deserves the job given he is the only obviously competent minister in Britain, is probably in the same boat. Priti Patel, in addition to being unelectable, has shown none of Mr Gove’s administrative alacrity during her disastrous tenure at the Home Office.
Who’s left? Suella Braverman is interesting if only because her candidacy will mean that the issue of Britain’s membership of the European Convention on Human Rights will be on the hustings agenda. This will be awkward for many of the more favoured candidates. It seems unlikely, however, that she will progress beyond the early elimination rounds, even if she convinces enough MPs to nominate her candidature. Even more interesting is Kemi Badenoch. She has done excellent work as Minister of State for Equalities, and has shown the intellectual muscle and rock ribs needed for the culture wars. She has even become a minor internet star for savaging MPs from the social justice wing of the Labour Party across the despatch box, something that, given exposure from Number 10, would make everybody in the country possessed of commonsense feel better about themselves. Ms Badenoch also comes from a STEM background, something British politics desperately needs more of. Yet despite her obvious qualities, she has no experience in any of the great offices of state, has only been on the government payroll for three years, and was first elected just five years ago.
The relationship between the Conservative Party and those who vote for it is Lucy holding the American football for Charlie Brown, persuading him over and over that this time she won’t pull the ball away at the last moment, and so he won’t fall on his backside. Leadership contests are one of the ways the Tories trick us into having another running kick. With this list of candidates, one of whom will become Prime Minister the instant he or she wins, perhaps the only response is “Oh, good grief”.
