Sajid Javid could be just the leader the post-brexit Tory party needs
The new Home Secretary is showing that he is a reformer who is impatient for radical change
This time last year, it all seemed to be over for Sajid Javid. Hailed as one of David Cameron’s rising stars, he had fallen foul of Theresa May’s new regime and her shift away from free markets. Hers was a world where government set “industrial strategies” for businesses to follow: he had came into politics to fight such ideas, so was clearly doomed. He was being heavily briefed against by No 10 to the effect that when Mrs May won her strong majority, he would be sacked.
But things changed and Mr Javid is now the 82nd Home Secretary and perhaps the first to be appointed through the gritted teeth of a Prime Minister. Her way of doing business – robotic, target-driven, efficient but often uncaring – had led to the Windrush scandal. He had seen the disaster coming so, when Amber Rudd resigned, was the obvious choice to succeed her. Mrs May’s party would not have tolerated her appointing a yes-man (or woman) to clean up her mess, so she ended up promoting the man she had been all set to bury.
Now, barely a month into the job, Mr Javid is warming to this second chance at political life. In his speech to the Police Federation this week he praised officers rather than upbraiding them as Mrs May had tended to do. While she had insinuated that officers were racially discriminating with stop-and-search powers, he urged them to use such powers as much as is necessary. As for racial abuse, he knows that policemen – like his brother – are also likely to be victims of it, and can be assaulted, even hospitalised, just for doing their job.
It’s a big change of tone, not just for the Government but for Mr Javid himself. He has been in the Cabinet for four years but only now has he really started to talk about his family, his upbringing and how it shapes his politics. He grew up in poverty with a bus driver father in a Muslim household – just like Sadiq Khan. But unlike the Mayor of London, Mr Javid seldom talks about his background, which seemed not so much bashful as just plain daft. Being able to explain what drives you is a basic skill of politics – one that Mr Javid has been slow to master. He is uninterested in himself, which is a shame when so many might be interested in him.
Friends say he can’t bring himself to spin a hard-luck story because he feels nothing but gratitude for his upbringing. A mother who, though illiterate, supervised his study every day. Then Exeter University, where he met his wife. A vice president of Chase Manhattan bank at the age of 25, and a close relationship with four brothers whose lives are – like his – a case study in what Michael Howard famously called the “British dream”.
He’s also a case study of the type of Tory who dislikes identity politics and, as a result, seldom talks about who he is. Now, he’s starting to – and with some effect. The Windrush debacle, he said, could have affected his parents as they arrived in Britain at around the same time. When he expresses disgust at the way immigrants and their families were treated by the Government, his anger is palpable and credible. If his personal glasnost continues, it will raise questions as to what might come next.
The idea of Mr Javid as Prime Minister would have been seen as a joke until fairly recently. He’s made his fair share of missteps. He’s a Eurosceptic who ended up backing Remain, deciding at an embarrassingly late stage that the cost of leaving would outweigh the benefits. As Business Secretary he was seen to have mishandled the Tata Steel plant drama, having to be dragged back from a trip to Australia while the factory fought for its life. He once said the words “industrial” and “strategy” should not appear in the same sentence, only to serve a Prime Minister who created a Department for Industrial Strategy.
A less principled politician would then have gone along with Mrs May’s dirigisme, to keep his career afloat. Instead he fought her, and expected to pay for it with his career. Even his last job, as Housing Secretary, was heading towards a dead end: he had come up with a fairly radical plan for a mass housebuilding programme that sacrificed some green belt and required a lot of Government borrowing. It was vetoed by No 10, so he ended up stymied yet again – until he ended up Home Secretary with quite a free hand. And a chance to show his colleagues what he can do.
His first change – rhetorical style – is relatively easy. The bigger test will be if he can win the battle that his predecessor kept losing: creating a more sensible immigration regime with more Tier 2 visas for highlyskilled workers. Ms Rudd wanted to let in a lot more doctors, engineers and computer programmers. Mrs May wanted no deviation from the overall target – and she won. This, of course, is the inflexibility that led to the Windrush debacle. If Mr Javid can replace this with a more liberal system, which can easily be introduced after Brexit, he’ll have won the gratitude of his party.
He isn’t disliked, which counts for a lot at a time when Tory leadership elections are won by whoever has the fewest enemies. When he ran for the leadership two years ago, the junior partner on a joint ticket with the now-forgotten Stephen Crabb, they presented themselves as the “nice guy” duo. That was the biggest boast either could make, having not achieved much or made clear what they stood for. As Home Secretary, Mr Javid is making it clearer now: he’s a reformer, someone who wants to change the tone of the party and is impatient for radical change. Someone who’s sure of himself and his form of conservatism.
Of course, it could all end horribly. He might step on one of the Home Office landmines, as Ms Rudd did. But if he survives, he might end up being seen as the best chance of restoring purpose and direction to a party in dire need of both.