Rishi Sunak told the Tories to ‘unite or die’ as he took office this week. Some of his party colleagues appear to be pursuing the latter option. It hasn’t taken long for Conservative MPs to resume the civil war that has brought the party to its current parlous and deeply divided state.
First came an open clash in the Commons chamber between Jacob Rees-Mogg and fellow Tory Richard Graham, the MP for Gloucester. Not waiting for his inevitable sacking as business secretary, Rees-Mogg had only just finished penning his handwritten resignation letter on Tuesday when he accused Graham of never having accepted Brexit. Graham angrily denied the charge as ‘utterly untrue’ and Rees-Mogg courteously withdrew. But this opening skirmish between the warring Tory factions was gave a taste of bigger battles to come.
Next up was an unprecedented spat between Jake Berry and Worthing MP Tim Loughton. Clearly smarting after his dismissal by Sunak as Tory party chairman, Berry had accused Suella Braverman of committing previous breaches of national security during her first stint as Home Secretary before her resignation over the issue a week ago. Her recall to the same job by the new PM after just a few days in the wilderness has been viciously attacked by Labour. But for the ex-party chairman to join – and even amplify – such assaults on a senior minister only goes to show the bitter depths to which the Tory wars have sunk.
Sunak loyalist Loughton hit back at Berry, telling Times Radio he found it ‘odd’ that the former chairman had only come up with the charge the day after he had been sacked. Loughton added that he trusted the Prime Minister’s judgement in bringing Braverman back into the fold in her old job.
Rishi Sunak told the Tories to ‘unite or die’. Some of his party colleagues appear to be pursuing the latter option
Another former loyalist of both Boris Johnson and Liz Truss – who has been forgiven by Sunak and retained in his post in one of the great offices of state – is Foreign Secretary James Cleverly. But it didn’t take long for Cleverly to blot his copybook and come under fire for some innocuous but possibly injudicious remarks he made to Nick Ferrari on LBC regarding the behaviour of English football fans travelling to Qatar for the World Cup next month.
Cleverly told Ferrari that gay fans going to the Middle East for the tournament should ‘compromise’ and ‘respect the culture’ of a state where homosexuality is banned – and punishable by seven years’ imprisonment. After Cleverly endured a storm of criticism for supposedly bowing to a homophobic state, yet another former Johnson/Truss loyalist, Nadhim Zahawi, was humiliatingly sent on the Ferrari show the next day to perform a swift reverse ferret. Zahawi, who was born in Iraq, told the station that of course visitors to Qatar should not compromise, whatever their sexuality.
The complex crosscurrents rending the Tory party – Brexiteers vs Remainers; Johnson/Truss loyalists vs Sunak supporters; free marketeers vs Keynesians; One Nation wets vs Thatcherite dries – are not disappearing any time soon. To these ideological differences must be added the personal animosities built up during 12 years of government.
The Tory benches are now chock-a-block with the disappointed and the resentful: ex-ministers angry at their dismissal; would-be-ministers grumpy that their talents have not been recognised; Red Wall members who fear their seats will revert to Labour and shire Tories scared theirs will fall to the Lib Dems.
All these elements form a pool of the discontented which can probably be said to include most backbenchers and a fair few ministers. From this group, more trouble – rebellions, resignations and public carping about their Conservative colleagues – is certain. Not only may there be troubles ahead: it now looks definite that there will be.
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