Is the Tory party ready for Stewart’s Macron moment?
The leadership race’s ‘dark horse’ has momentum – but will struggle to catch Johnson’s slick machine
While most of the Conservative leadership candidates who survived the first round were left reeling by Boris Johnson’s crushing success, Rory Stewart was celebrating.
That might seem odd, given the International Development Secretary came seventh. Matt Hancock has already withdrawn, despite having 20 backers to Mr Stewart’s 19. Yet, while the Health Secretary retreats to consider how best to salvage his Cabinet career, the talk is of Mr Stewart as a dark horse. A man perhaps capable of repeating the remarkable triumph of Emmanuel Macron in France.
The crucial difference from Mr Hancock is that Mr Stewart appears to have what Americans call “Big Mo” – momentum. While Mr Hancock barely added to the 17 backers who got him on the ballot, Mr Stewart entered the race with just seven supporters.
But what is it about this craggy-yet-boyish old Etonian that makes people believe he can defy the odds?
Quite simply, he’s rather different. Enthusiastic; an accomplished and compelling public speaker who answers questions directly; at ease with the public and with a backstory that, while far from rags to riches, makes for a great story, Mr Stewart has all the foundations for a successful political career.
Briefly a soldier, Mr Stewart also spent several closely-guarded years at the Foreign Office, governed two Iraqi provinces in the wake of the 2003 invasion and walked across Asia before writing a bestselling book about it. But it’s his impromptu walkabouts in places such as Barking, Wigan and Kew Gardens, combined with savvy social media use, that have shown his true potential as a campaigner.
A video of Mr Stewart explaining why he believes a no-deal Brexit is a bad idea has been watched more than two million times on Twitter, while his almost constant stream of often humorous posts gain far more engagement than the usual anodyne output of his colleagues. In the UK he has become the second most googled candidate behind only Mr Johnson.
Right now, however, the race to be the next prime minister is about
‘Whenever he speaks in Cabinet everyone else sits up and listens, because he has original ideas’
winning over colleagues. And Mr Stewart has the tools to do that too.
Most importantly, he has the thinking to back up the talking. As one Cabinet minister told The Daily Telegraph: “Whenever he speaks in Cabinet everyone else sits up and listens, because he has original ideas.”
Perhaps everything is in place, then, for Mr Stewart to walk into No10.
His path to victory could look something like this. More moderate candidates drop out, backing Mr Stewart as the remaining “voice of reason”.
His momentum continues to grow and he gains supporters from Jeremy Hunt and Michael Gove, whose continuing equivocation on Brexit costs them support.
Having made it to the third round, he becomes the obvious choice for moderates and Remainers and makes it to the final two. Come the members’ ballot, Mr Johnson’s continued refusal to campaign irks the electorate. The favourite also suffers from being so well known and finds it impossible to change opinions of him. Mr Stewart comes in as a relative unknown, which allows him to win people over quickly. Indeed, Mr Stewart has already surged into second place on the Conservative Home poll of members over the course of just two weeks.
His impressive performance and growing popularity in the country convince Tory activists that he is a ready-made vote winner. Meanwhile, his combination of traditional Tory messages such as fiscal conservatism, individual shareholding and community with modernising ambitions on the environment and investing in the North, catches the imagination of members and propels him to a shock victory.
But is Britain really set for its Macron moment? There are plenty of reasons to think not. For one, Messrs Hunt and Gove are unlikely to give up easily. More importantly, Mr Macron created a whole new party while Mr Stewart wants to take over the Conservatives from the inside.
To do so he needs to win over the members – yet his continued support for the Withdrawal Agreement and his refusal to countenance no deal places him at odds with the grass roots, three quarters of whom back leaving without a deal. If moderate Tory MPS do rally around an anti-johnson candidate, it won’t be one they expect to be rejected by the membership.
Mr Stewart is relatively untested; he has been in the Cabinet barely six weeks. Such generational changes are usually reserved for the wilderness years of opposition, not a party and a nation’s most challenging moment.
Another Parliament spent in the Cabinet should leave Mr Stewart well poised for the next leadership race, but Brexit, for many reasons, probably makes this a step too soon. Instead, this race remains Mr Johnson’s to lose.
Mr Macron’s big break came when his biggest rival, François Fillon, was engulfed in scandal. Yet by all accounts, this Johnson campaign is more professional and determined than ever. Even a dark horse will struggle to stop him.