North-South rift turns Tories blue
JUST one month on from Boris Johnson’s general election landslide, the first cracks are already emerging in his much-strengthened One-Nation Tory team. So far, the fissures are barely visible to anyone outside Westminster. Yet within the Commons, nervous whispers about a new Tory NorthSouth divide are beginning to be heard.
MPs say the Prime Minister’s success in smashing through the so-called Red Wall to capture a swathe of Labour constituencies in the Midlands and the North has transformed the Conservative Parliamentary Party. “The new intake is a very different breed,” said one Tory insider. “Their priorities are a world away from those representing the traditional Tory shires.”
Mr Johnson’s party won many former Labour seats that have not returned Tory MPs for generations. Now the challenge is on to turn the “loan” of their votes into a permanent change of allegiance.
Ministers insist the cultural shift resulting from the breaching of the Red Wall can only benefit the Tories. One minister who represents a North of England seat told me: “We really are a party that represents the whole of the country. Our new Northern MPs will keep us properly in touch with voters’ concerns far beyond the Westminster bubble. We have ignored them for far too long.”
YET not every Tory MP is overjoyed at the way the parliamentary party has changed. Some longserving members in the party’s southern heartlands fret that diverting government spending to the North at the expense of other regions will breed resentment that could make Tory seats vulnerable to a Lib Dem revival while being sceptical about whether the newly annexed territory will stay blue.
One MP from a constituency in the south-east said: “There’s definitely a North-South divide in the party now. We need money for transport in the South but the northern MPs have a lot of power and I fear the cash will go there.” He added: “There was only one reason why voters backed us in the North and it was not Boris, it was Brexit. I’m not confident we can keep them next time round and there is no strategy about what we stand for.”
Many of the new Tory MPs from the North and Midlands have aligned themselves with the Blue Collar Conservative group championed by the Housing Minister Esther McVey that seeks to focus the party on winning and retaining working-class votes. About 130 MPs have indicated support for the group, enough to make it one of the most powerful alliances among Tory backbenchers. Mr Johnson’s aides are understood to be so wary about the potential influence of the group that they scheduled a drinks reception in Number 10 for new MPs to coincide with its first caucus meeting.
MR JOHNSON should brace himself for intensifying pressure from his colleagues to scrap the High Speed Rail (HS2) link planned by former Tory chancellor George Osborne. Opponents argue that cancelling the lavish project, which some estimates now put at more than £100billion, could free up billions for investment in improving regional transport links across the North and Midlands without needing to slash budgets for infrastructure spending in the South.
“All the talk in the Government at the moment is about improving East-West transport links,” said a minister, in a clear hint that HS2 is being lined up for the chop.
Mr Johnson and his team will have to come up with other ways to knit together the two Tory tribes into a One Nation party. The Prime Minister is rapidly learning that heading a big majority requires some delicate party management skills.
KENNETH Clarke and Dominic Grieve, who both left the Commons at the general election, were the star attractions at the reception of the Conservative Group for Europe on Wednesday. “It was a fantastic evening and provided the opportunity to welcome the large number of new members who have joined the group recently,” the pro-Brussels organisation said. Photos of the event showed fewer than 40 people turned up.
TRANSPORT Secretary Grant Shapps left officials at Andrea Leadsom’s Department for Business underwhelmed when the two Cabinet ministers worked to save the airline Flybe from financial collapse this week. “Shapps took rather a long time to get engaged,” said one insider. “It was as if he was asleep on the flight deck.”
BRENDAN Clarke-Smith, the newly elected Tory MP for Bassetlaw, has earned a new nickname among party colleagues after capturing the Nottinghamshire seat with the biggest electoral surge from Labour recorded at the general election. “We’re calling him the Biggest Swinger in Town,” said one Tory insider.
TOM Watson had to move out of his Commons office at the foot of Parliament’s Elizabeth Tower after fears that maintenance work raised a risk of Big Ben plummeting from the belfry, Labour sources reveal. “We were worried it could dent the bell if it fell on him,” one Labour insider joked about the former deputy leader, now busy promoting his diet book after quitting Westminster.
MINISTERS have been racking their brains for an alternative way to mark Brexit after Commons chiefs ruled out allowing Big Ben to chime on the moment of departure at 11pm on January 31. One idea circulating was for a display of flying drones to light up the night sky.