Politics: Rees-Mogg Cannot Be PM. But Yet…

Despite a solid band of fans young and old who are devoted to the stoic manner and nostalgic appeal of Jacob Rees-Mogg, grassroots “Moggmentum” will not make the MP for North Somerset leader of the Conservative Party and Prime Minister. And yet his proponents keep wishing…

Unelectable

For a start, despite his comedic credentials Rees-Mogg is an unelectable figure from the hard Right who would have no chance of spanning the political spectrum needed to win an election within the Tory Party, let alone the general public. Known as the “Honourable Member for the 18th Century”, Rees-Mogg has no record of senior office and a staunchly Conservative voting record from opposing initiatives such as gay marriage and the Fitness for Human Habitation Bill, which sought to protect basic living standards for low-income tenants.

Rees-Mogg is smart enough to know he has no chance of ever becoming leader. “I think if I threw my hat in the ring, my hat would be thrown back at me pretty quickly,” he has admitted.

Under Davis

In the hypothetical situation that “Moggmentum” really swept the hearts and minds of the country rather than just the Twitter feeds of activists and Silly Season newspaper headlines, could the party that has worked so hard to “modernise” itself over the past decade really allow itself to be redefined by such an eccentric candidate? The Tory Party’s rules for electing a new leader say that Conservative MPs must elect two candidates who are then submitted to all members of the Conservative Party for a final ballot. Even with a determined band of fans within the broader party membership Rees-Mogg has virtually no chance of getting past that first hurdle and winning the nod from his fellow MPs.

There is a growing prospect that Theresa May’s successor will be a fresh face, just as David Cameron was when he became Tory leader in 2005 as a 39-year-old with just four years service as an MP. Even among established figures there are literally dozens of Tory MPs whose credentials in the party, parliament and government totally outgun those of Rees-Mogg. He may have come second in a “next leader” survey of party activists run by the blog Conservative Home but his backing was still dwarfed by the support for David Davis, who came second to Cameron in 2005 and fourth when Iain Duncan Smith became leader in 2001.

Inexperienced

To demonstrate Rees-Mogg’s standing among Tory MPs we need only look at the recent election for the chair of the House of Commons Treasury Select Committee when he was beaten by Nicky Morgan, a dumped minister and former Remain advocate who is out of favour with both the party’s leadership and its “hard Brexit” faction.

Morgan was simply a far more substantial candidate. She is a frmer Education Secretary, Minister for Women and Equalities, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, Assistant Government Whip and Parliamentary Private Secretary.

Rees-Mogg’s accomplishments, on the other hand, are sparse, amounting to stints on three House committees and a failure to ever hold one of the 100-odd jobs in the extended ministry.

Desperate for modernity

Heidi Allen, MP for South Cambridgeshire told BBC Radio 4′s Westminster Hour that while Rees-Mogg is incredibly charming she “couldn’t be in the Conservative Party if he was my leader.” She did not think he would be “the modern face of the Tory Party that we are desperate, or I am certainly and colleagues are certainly desperate, to prove is out there.”

Perhaps the greatest concern over Rees-Mogg’s apparent popularity among Tory activists is the message it sends to the party about the kind of leader they want. If the party wants to put forward a hard Right candidate in this increasingly polarised political era it would have no trouble finding someone with similar views but without the clipped vowels, Brylcreem and elitist persona.

And yet… this is an age when the word “unelectable” has lost much of its meaning. Think Donald Trump and Jeremy Corbyn.

by Stewart Vickers

 

 

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