The Javid-truss dream team is restoring the hopes of Thatcherites
Despite the shambolic Brexit negotiations, at last things are looking up for the Tories
For true-blue Thatcherites, the past few years should have been the most exciting since the 1980s, their first real taste of victory since the halcyon days of massive tax cuts, strike-busting and privatisation. Instead, the anticlimax since the Brexit triumph has been devastatingly brutal. One minute the Brexiteers had won, the next they had lost, and that was even before Theresa May threw away her Commons majority. Barring a miracle, the shambolic Brexit “negotiations” look set to go down as an epic failure of Suez-like proportions.
Instead of leveraging our many advantages, the Government’s negotiators have squandered them: rather than fighting, they unilaterally disarmed. We were strong but, as time runs out, we have made ourselves weak. No wonder so many fear yet another sell-out at the Chequers Cabinet meeting next week.
The drift, the lack of vision, the refusal to lead, to sell, to argue and to convince – all have taken a toll on our society and economy. Many freemarket Tories now fear that the party’s libertarian tradition is nearing extinction, replaced by an uber-paternalistic approach to what ought to be private lifestyle choices. Declinism is back, and the country is engulfed in a low-level culture war that threatens to tear apart the Tory blue-collar-middle-class coalition.
Until now, such musings, ever more frequent on Planet Tory, ended in the same way: yes, things are bad, but who is there, when the day comes, to rescue the party? The answer was always the same: it’s hopeless. Yes, there are the obvious names, some of which have been badly damaged by the chaos of the past few years. But everybody concluded that there was no gamechanging candidate whom the public would see as fresh and “untainted”, who was a Cabinet member and who could be trusted on Brexit. I have been witness to a number of such discussions, and those involved – MPS, donors, supporters – always left depressed.
Yet everything has changed. When the question is now asked, one name keeps propping up: Sajid Javid, who has emerged as the front-runner for many Brexiteers and Thatcherites. His exceptional performance since becoming Home Secretary just two months ago has confirmed his supporters’ best hopes, and even those who remain sceptical are intrigued.
The former investment banker has acted swiftly and decisively, tearing up major planks of the May/amber Rudd Home Office consensus, in every case taking on and defeating the Prime Minister. His first, most dramatic intervention was to confirm that he had become a real Brexiteer, torpedoing May’s plan for a disastrous customs partnership with the EU. The Home Secretary also promptly defused the Windrush scandal, ushering in a new era of humility for the Home Office and, hopefully, ensuring that it no longer regularly deports the wrong people. It’s not just the language that has changed: Javid understands the nuances in the debate and the combination of toughness and softness the public expects. Voters want fewer migrants overall, but are happy for more high-skilled professionals to move here.
The fact that he has already been able to raise the cap for doctors and nurses was another triumph for Javid’s commonsensical approach. He has also mended fences with the police, a prerequisite if he wants to launch a crackdown on crime; in doing so, he further built up his backstory. Last but not least, he acted promptly during the Billy Caldwell episode, and forced through a review of the rules governing medical cannabis against May’s opposition.
The big question is whether Javid is allowed to write his own post-brexit immigration policy fit for a global Britain, or whether Remainers will try to ensure that Britain continues to treat Europeans more leniently than all other nationalities. But regardless of that, his list of achievements to date is remarkable and confirms his formidable ability to execute change.
It’s not just Javid who has resuscitated his career. Liz Truss, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, has done her reputation with the party’s Thatcherite wing a world of good with her brilliant speech on Monday. Speaking to the London School of Economics, she delivered the most pro-liberty and pro-capitalist speech I have heard from a senior Tory in years.
It was a radical countercultural blast, a demolition of the intellectually bankrupt state of Tory thinking: she called for a relaxation of planning laws, defended the right of restaurants to serve medium-rare meat and slammed the Government’s obsession with banning everything. She drew equally on popular culture – there was a paragraph on the burger chain Bleecker, and another on the 1980s classic Gremlins movie – and high theory, quoting FA Hayek and Lionel Robbins. Her case for free markets was cogent: Britain is a raucous and rowdy country, and our future lies in cultivating this maverick spirit, a key comparative advantage in an entrepreneurial world. “Truly free enterprise”, she argues, cuts prices, creates growth and jobs, “breaks down monopolies, hierarchies and outdated practices… destroys barriers, and erodes inequality”. Amen to that.
None of this, sadly, will endear her to the majority of Tory MPS, but she has emerged as the leading classical liberal in the cabinet and has thus earned the right to be heard.
Some other “new generation” ministers have also been performing well, including Matt Hancock, a forthright and articulate defender of free speech. Penny Mordaunt, the International Development Secretary, is doing good work. Like her predecessor Priti Patel – who will undoubtedly bounce back from exile – she understands that we spend and waste far too much on “aid”. But Javid’s emergence as a serious contender for the job of Prime Minister, when that position eventually becomes vacant, is by far the most important recent development in Tory land. Together with Truss’s restatement of why the Tories should believe in freedom, one can see a new, truly exciting vision for a post-brexit Britain emerging.
In the 1980s, Lady Thatcher’s Tory party backed Richard Branson and his upstart airline against British Airways. She surrounded herself with self-made entrepreneurs, and despised the subsidy-hungry wets of the CBI. Fast-forward 40 years, and Javid’s Tory party would be just as meritocratic, pro-growth and procapitalist. Thatcherites have spent the past two years in a state of everincreasing despair, but they are starting to believe that they may have finally found their saviour.