Politics: Boris’s Loss is Mogg’s Gain

The large group of Tory Party activists who yearn for a cartoonish old Etonian to lead their party seems to have swung their support from Boris Johnson to Jacob Rees-Mogg. The most recent survey of Tory Party members by the blog Conservative Home found an unprecedented crash in support for Johnson which was mirrored by a surge of new backing for Rees-Mogg, a backbench MP who is derided as “The Member for the 18th Century” and has never held any position of authority in the Conservative Party or parliament.

Sixteen years after the relentlessly ambitious Johnson first became an MP the plunge in his support from 18.1% to 9.5% in the monthly poll published on August 9 seems to finally mark the end of his chances of reaching Downing Street.

And what a roller-coaster it has been. Buoyed by his popularity, the ex-Mayor of London and vocal Brexiteer had a strong chance of replacing David Cameron after the Brexit referendum until he was betrayed by fellow Brexiteer Michael Gove.

Theresa May then threw him an unexpected lifeline by making him Foreign Secretary but his lacklustre performance during 13 months in that role seems to have exposed him to a harsh new light.

Tory Party members have apparently come around to the view of Johnson’s former leaders Cameron and Michael Howard – that he is more of a celebrity than a politician and is simply not a person of substance when it comes to actually running the country. Johnson has always been able to respond to his “lightweight” reputation among fellow MPs by pointing to his popularity with party activists and broader voters but the Conservative Home poll suggests he has now lost that standing among the party members who will have a key role in choosing the next leader.

The “next leader” poll came a day after the publication of Conservative Home’s “Cabinet League Table”, in which party members gave Johnson only the 12th-highest net approval rating of members of Cabinet. That meant Johnson, the one-time darling of party activists, was outshone by relative unknowns such as David Gauke, David Lidington and David Mundell. A fourth David, the Brexit Secretary David Davis, topped the approval ratings and was also the only person to reach double figures in the “next leader” survey, with 19.7% support.

Conservative Home has been chronicling the inner workings of the Tory Party since 2005 and its editor Paul Goodman said the striking thing about its latest leadership survey was the appetite for new blood as the “other” category, meaning “none of the above”, towered ahead of the party’s big names with 34.3% backing, up 4.4% in a month.

Moggmentum Strikes Again

Jacob Rees-Mogg was written in under the “Other” category as the choice of 142 respondents, or 11.7% of the total.  If he had been in the survey, he would have come second, sweeping the Foreign Secretary aside.

Goodman noted that Rees-Mogg’s support had probably benefited from the social media hype that has built up around him in recent weeks, with an apparently passionate following spanning his own Instagram page and a “Ready for Rees-Mogg” petition calling on him to stand for leader. One party member even got the word “Moggmentum” tattooed on his chest.

Goodman pointed out that Rees-Mogg’s write-in support meant that “if he had been in the survey he would have come second, sweeping the Foreign Secretary aside.”

The problem for Rees-Mogg enthusiasts is that for any MP’s name to be put forward to party members in a leadership ballot he must first win strong support from his fellow MPs. The MPs choose two names to send to all members for the final ballot, and those MPs have never backed Rees-Mogg for any significant position. Most of his colleagues at Westminster believe that the caricature he presents of a hard-Right old-world toff undo all of David Cameron’s success at depicting a more modern Conservative party.

Next Generation, Please

Goodman listed some of the reasons given by respondents for calling for a “none of the above” leadership candidate and they hardly support Rees-Mogg’s traditionalist approach. Typical comments included “a new face and moderniser is needed”, “from next generation”, ”fresh face from 2010 or 2015 intake”, ”skip a generation but no idea who it should be”, ”someone yet to emerge”, ”none of the above – someone new and fresh”, and ”we need to see some different faces.”

If those comments do reflect the yearnings of the Tory base they suggest that as well as giving up on Boris Johnson the broader party base will also have limited enthusiasm for Davis, who first became an MP 30 years ago, will turn 69 in a few months and will soon have the results of the Brexit negotiations hanging around his neck.

 

by Stewart Vickers

The post Politics: Boris’s Loss is Mogg’s Gain appeared first on Felix Magazine.