Rafael Behr
BY Rafael Behr
The Conservative party has acquired a knack for cheering its leader’s missteps as if they were masterstrokes. A court decides that Andy Coulson, the man David Cameron hired as a communications director and cherished as a confidant, is a liar and a crook. The prime minister’s terse apology, blurted out while the jury was still mulling over further charges, earns a rebuke from the judge. In parliament, Cameron declares himself blameless; his MPs demand no contrition.
Then it’s off to a European summit for diplomatic humiliation. His campaign to block the nomination of Jean-Claude Juncker as president of the European commission yields only snubs and resentment from fellow continental leaders. Tory backbenchers are glad. Discipline among Tories with more at stake at the next election is impressive, especially when compared with the rebellions and regicidal chuntering that marked the early years of this parliament.
Proximity to the general election is part of the explanation. Lynton Crosby, Downing Street’s pugilist campaign chief, is credited with knocking MPs into battle formation. Opinions that stray from the narrow script are forbidden. Ministers who speak at obscure think tank events and business forums find agents from Conservative HQ in the audience, radiating silent instruction to stay on message. Since last summer, the prime minister has also spent more time wooing his party. MPs who used to complain that Cameron breezed haughtily past them as if they were the staff are now more likely to be his guests in Downing Street for tea and biscuits. The knighthood recently bestowed on Bill Cash, veteran Eurosceptic saboteur of John Major’s government, looked like a down-payment on future quiescence.
This is disappointing for opposition MPs who were relying on a fifth column of Cameron-baiting right-wingers to boost their election prospects. Labour had pencilled in a Conservative civil war for the period immediately after May’s European elections but, despite doing every bit as badly as forecast, the Tories skipped their appointment with implosion. Now they aren’t even tearing into Cameron for failing to stop an “arch-federalist” seizing the reins in Brussels.
MPs who used to despise Cameron because he believed in nothing and bore the imprint of whoever sat on him last still think those things. The difference now is that they also think he may be re-elected and they are the ones doing the sitting. Even the most optimistic Tories accept that a majority in 2015 is highly unlikely, but hopes of being the biggest party in a hung parliament are rife. In that event, Cameron would never get away with bouncing the party straight into a coalition as he did in 2010. His MPs would demand a vote, and the only plausible deal would be one that satisfies the right. Alternatively, Cameron leads a minority administration. Either way, the backbenchers who are currently so obliging will hold the whip hand. They are patient, not loyal.
That is why anti-Brussels hardliners are so relaxed about Cameron’s inability to thwart Juncker. When he realised defeat was inevitable, he took a tactical decision to ramp up the confrontation so he might at least pose as a martyr for the Eurosceptic cause. The whole episode thrills the “Brexit” brigade as it looks like proof that the EU is beyond redemption. It exposes, they say, the fiction of renewing membership under renegotiated terms – Cameron’s stated ambition – and reveals that the only question for Britain is “in or out?” They hope the prime minister can be ratcheted into a more agnostic position in the run-up to the election and a hostile one afterwards. His record of surrender to Eurosceptic demands suggests that is a plausible strategy. If it fails, defenestration is available as a back-up plan.
There is a peculiar atmosphere of faux unity around the Tory party that makes it both impossible to imagine Cameron facing a leadership challenge before next May, and hard to imagine him surviving a second term without one. MPs anticipate a blood-letting around the European referendum, planned for autumn 2017, with casual resignation.
The truce may unravel. Many MPs who thought they were feeding ideas into the policy machine will discover that they have ended up in a Number 10 shredder.
Meanwhile, the Tories’ big strategic challenge – how to appeal to an angry horde of Ukip defectors without alienating young liberals and nonwhite voters – is no closer to resolution. That dilemma reflects a deferred battle for the soul of the Conservative party. Having flirted at various times with sabotage and defeatism, Tory MPs have decided they would rather wage that war in government than in opposition.
But to get there they must collude in the pretence that Cameron is everything they want him to be. They rally to him and call him strong because that is how they make the most of his weakness. He isn’t the leader of his party; he is the paper over its cracks.
THE GUARDIAN
BY Rafael Behr
The Conservative party has acquired a knack for cheering its leader’s missteps as if they were masterstrokes. A court decides that Andy Coulson, the man David Cameron hired as a communications director and cherished as a confidant, is a liar and a crook. The prime minister’s terse apology, blurted out while the jury was still mulling over further charges, earns a rebuke from the judge. In parliament, Cameron declares himself blameless; his MPs demand no contrition.
Then it’s off to a European summit for diplomatic humiliation. His campaign to block the nomination of Jean-Claude Juncker as president of the European commission yields only snubs and resentment from fellow continental leaders. Tory backbenchers are glad. Discipline among Tories with more at stake at the next election is impressive, especially when compared with the rebellions and regicidal chuntering that marked the early years of this parliament.
Proximity to the general election is part of the explanation. Lynton Crosby, Downing Street’s pugilist campaign chief, is credited with knocking MPs into battle formation. Opinions that stray from the narrow script are forbidden. Ministers who speak at obscure think tank events and business forums find agents from Conservative HQ in the audience, radiating silent instruction to stay on message. Since last summer, the prime minister has also spent more time wooing his party. MPs who used to complain that Cameron breezed haughtily past them as if they were the staff are now more likely to be his guests in Downing Street for tea and biscuits. The knighthood recently bestowed on Bill Cash, veteran Eurosceptic saboteur of John Major’s government, looked like a down-payment on future quiescence.
This is disappointing for opposition MPs who were relying on a fifth column of Cameron-baiting right-wingers to boost their election prospects. Labour had pencilled in a Conservative civil war for the period immediately after May’s European elections but, despite doing every bit as badly as forecast, the Tories skipped their appointment with implosion. Now they aren’t even tearing into Cameron for failing to stop an “arch-federalist” seizing the reins in Brussels.
MPs who used to despise Cameron because he believed in nothing and bore the imprint of whoever sat on him last still think those things. The difference now is that they also think he may be re-elected and they are the ones doing the sitting. Even the most optimistic Tories accept that a majority in 2015 is highly unlikely, but hopes of being the biggest party in a hung parliament are rife. In that event, Cameron would never get away with bouncing the party straight into a coalition as he did in 2010. His MPs would demand a vote, and the only plausible deal would be one that satisfies the right. Alternatively, Cameron leads a minority administration. Either way, the backbenchers who are currently so obliging will hold the whip hand. They are patient, not loyal.
That is why anti-Brussels hardliners are so relaxed about Cameron’s inability to thwart Juncker. When he realised defeat was inevitable, he took a tactical decision to ramp up the confrontation so he might at least pose as a martyr for the Eurosceptic cause. The whole episode thrills the “Brexit” brigade as it looks like proof that the EU is beyond redemption. It exposes, they say, the fiction of renewing membership under renegotiated terms – Cameron’s stated ambition – and reveals that the only question for Britain is “in or out?” They hope the prime minister can be ratcheted into a more agnostic position in the run-up to the election and a hostile one afterwards. His record of surrender to Eurosceptic demands suggests that is a plausible strategy. If it fails, defenestration is available as a back-up plan.
There is a peculiar atmosphere of faux unity around the Tory party that makes it both impossible to imagine Cameron facing a leadership challenge before next May, and hard to imagine him surviving a second term without one. MPs anticipate a blood-letting around the European referendum, planned for autumn 2017, with casual resignation.
The truce may unravel. Many MPs who thought they were feeding ideas into the policy machine will discover that they have ended up in a Number 10 shredder.
Meanwhile, the Tories’ big strategic challenge – how to appeal to an angry horde of Ukip defectors without alienating young liberals and nonwhite voters – is no closer to resolution. That dilemma reflects a deferred battle for the soul of the Conservative party. Having flirted at various times with sabotage and defeatism, Tory MPs have decided they would rather wage that war in government than in opposition.
But to get there they must collude in the pretence that Cameron is everything they want him to be. They rally to him and call him strong because that is how they make the most of his weakness. He isn’t the leader of his party; he is the paper over its cracks.
THE GUARDIAN
