Are these t wo men about to pick the next Tory leader?
SOMETHING sinister is stirring inside the Tory Party. Over t he past week I’ve been picking up t he same reports from Tory MPs and Ministers. ‘ In the wake of Chequers I was expecting a wave of resignations,’ one backbencher told me, ‘but the opposite has happened. I’ve suddenly had 20 new members sign up virtually overnight. That’s not happened before.’
A Cabinet Minister tells an identical story. ‘I had 30 people sign up. So I checked with a neighbouring MP. Exactly the same thing happened to him. And I don’t think these are people who are joining because they’re overjoyed at the PM’s new Brexit negotiating position.’
Attention has understandably been focused on Labour and its continuing slide i nto the antiSemitic abyss. The Corbynite White Walkers – the Game Of Thronesi nspired nickname for Jezza’s army of ruthless and devout followers – have again been touring social media, professing their undying devotion to their leader and issuing punishment beatings to anyone who dares criticise him. But among Conservative moderates there is mounting concern that history may be about to repeat itself. And that an attempt is going to made by an equally pitiless undead army to seize control of their party.
Last Saturday, the news agency Reuters reported that Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s extreme-Right former campaign guru, was touring Europe with the aim of helping ‘ nationalist movements around Europe to build up their polling, messaging and political “analytics” capabilities’. In the course of the Reuters interview, Bannon – using the discretion he is renowned for – bragged of his association with three well-known Tory Brexiteers.
Boris Johnson was, he said, ‘one of the most important persons on the world stage today’. The two men had been in frequent contact during his recent visit to the UK. He had also been in contact with Michael Gove and Jacob ReesMogg. Collectively, they represented ‘a deep talent bench’ for the Tories. There was clearly plenty of braggadocio in what Bannon said. Friends of Johnson claim that their communication never got beyond an extended game of telephone tag. Gove’s allies insist the only time he had ever been in contact was when he was arranging a Times interview with Trump.
But Tory Kremlinologists see a pattern emerging. They have noticed Bannon has also been strengthening his links with Nigel Farage and the Ukip ultras. They have observed how Farage and those allies have in turn started to publicly talk up Johnson and ReesMogg. And t hey believe both Farage and Bannon were behind Trump’s endorsement of Johnson during his recent round of bull-ina-Windsor-china-shop diplomacy.
Indeed, some of those Kremlinologists reside inside Downing Street. As one No 10 official put it: ‘You have to remember, we don’t have a membership the size of Labour. It only needs someone to sign up a relatively small number of active people, and they can have a major effect.’
In other words, replicating Momentum inside the Conservative Party. Or ‘Moggmentum’.
There was a time when this social- media hashtag for the resolutely analogue member for North East Somerset was treated as a harmless joke. But Tory MPs aren’t laughing any more.
It’s true there are numerous obstacles in the way of anyone plotting a Corbynite- style takeover of the Conservatives. One is the Corbynite takeover of the Labour Party. ‘The big advantage we have is we’ve seen what’s happened to Labour,’ one moderate MP said, a touch hopefully. ‘We can point to the mess they’ve got themselves in, and say, “Come on, guys. We just can’t risk ending up like that.” ’
Others point – even more hopefully – to what they claim is the good political judgment and character of Boris Johnson. Allies of Johnson are adamant that he will have no truck with Bannon and Farage’s toxic brand of neo-nationalism. ‘The whole reason he backed Brexit was because he thinks we have to find a way of heading off this sort of dangerous populism,’ one told me. A more circumspect observer of the former Foreign Secretary framed it in a different way. ‘Boris is at heart a progressive, liberal Tory. And even if he does start flirting with these guys, we’ll be able to control him.’
But the main obstacle to any plot is the Tory leadership rules. Unlike Labour, only two candidates are allowed to proceed to a full ballot of Tory members. And some moderates are confident the parliamentary party would ensure any Corbynite clones are weeded out. ‘Boris has no base among the MPs, and ReesMogg isn’t a serious candidate for PM,’ one told me confidently.
Too confidently. There is now a real and present danger to the Conservative Party and the country. And mainstream Tories need to wake up to it. Bannon and Farage and their poisonous political brand have been di s missed before. And it led to Brexit and a Trump White House. Yes, Farage is essentially a wideboy political chancer. But Bannon is a serious, borderline white supremacist.
The response of any Conservative MP should be to slam the phone down on him, not play telephone tag. And certainly not sit down with him, because – as Rees-Mogg claimed in a phrase that could have been borrowed from the Corbynite playbook on how to excuse inexcusable meetings – ‘I talk to any number of people whose political views I don’t share or fully endorse’.
The broader strategy is certainly from the Corbyn playbook. Encourage Ukip members and other disillusioned Brexiteers to sign up to, or return to, the Tory Party. Frame Chequers as a historic betrayal. Define any existing Cabinet Minister as complicit in that betrayal. Use pressure from the membership to force Boris, another Rees-Mogg surrogate, or Rees-Mogg himself on to the final ballot. Then hoover up votes in the constituency associations.
And what, in response, is the moderates’ strategy? Remainers such as Nicky Morgan, Justine Greening and Amber Rudd are Untouchables in the eyes of the Tory membership. Sajid Javid and Jeremy Hunt are circling each other warily, while hulking around their Chequers baggage. Gove is viewed by a number of Tories as the unity candidate who could bind the disparate factions together. But he too is encumbered by Chequers, as well as questions about whether he has the charisma to see off Corbyn and his cultists.
THIS is no longer merely t he s t uff of ni ghtmares. The past week has seen Labour sink to depths even those of us who number ourselves among its harshest critics would have thought unimaginable. And within t he Tories, the same malign pressures are starting to exert themselves. At the moment Theresa May is resisting – just – the forces of racism and populism that have consumed her opponents. But Chequers has probably ended any prospect of her fighting the next Election.
So there is now a genuine threat of that Election being framed as a choice between ultra-Left Corbynites and ultra-Right Bannonites. Of both great political party’s becoming reduced to mere proxies in an ideological, political and cultural war of destruction.
Too fanciful? Labour’s White Walkers have already arrived. And deep within the Tory Party, the Blue Walkers are mobilising.