In his assessment on this site of amendments to the Rwanda Bill, Henry Hill set out trade-offs in relation to the more restrictive ones. On the one hand, some of these would, in his view, improve the Bill. On the other, their passing might make it less likely, he suggested, that the Bill would pass the Commons, then pass the Lords, and survive friction with the courts.
My own view for what it’s worth is that the least bad option would be to make the Bill as effective as possible – and, in the event of either House or the judges resisting it, make its proposals part of the next Conservative manifesto.
For this reason, I think that the 60 or so Tory rebels, whose case was made on ConservativeHome yesterday by Simon Clarke and today by John Hayes, have the better of the argument, and that Lee Anderson, Brendan Clarke-Smith and Jane Stevenson were right to resign from Rishi Sunak’s team.
However, the Third Reading of the Bill, which will take place later today, is a different matter. It doesn’t present Tory MPs with a choice between the good and the better, as some amendments have done. Rather, it offers them one between the imperfect…and nothing at all.
For if the Bill falls, the Government will have no policy that might stop the boats. That no-one else has one either, least of all Sir Keir Starmer, is beside the point – which is that while oppositions oppose, governments govern, and one of the Prime Minister’s five pledges will have been blown up.
That might bring on the confidence ballot in Sunak which some of those 60 rebels want, that Lord Frost may be willing to contemplate, and which the Daily Telegraph‘s YouGov poll, analysis and commentary has given new legs.
My best guess is that the Prime Minister would win in such a ballot, just as Margaret Thatcher, Theresa May and Boris Johnson once did. But that all three lost office soon after winning those votes, as their authority ebbed and faded. There is no reason to think it would be different this time round.
So the Conservatives would be on the brink of their third leadership election in less than two years. Let’s think through the pros and cons of one for the Party and the country.
Such a contest would doubtless be contested. With war in Ukraine, a continuing economic squeeze, the NHS under unparalled pressure, and British troops in action in the Middle East, the Conservative Party would be channelling its energies into a leadership election in which both MPs and party members vote.
That might be squeezed into a month (say). But the shorter it would be, the more members would complain, not unreasonably, that they were being denied the right properly to scrutinise the two candidates put before them.
The last contest was one was so repulsive, with candidates kicking lumps out of each other, that this site refused to back any of the candidates. “At best, a damp squib. At worst, self-destructive. Either way, not up to the challenge. Why ConservativeHome isn’t endorsing a candidate yet. If we do at all,” I wrote at the time. Why should another one be nicer?
But presume for a moment that is, and the winner returns to Westminster, eager to to champion a Tory programme truly blue in tooth and claw. Great. But how?
Big tax cuts, with the markets as they are? An end to Net Zero? What about the legislation that underpins it? Lower immigration? How could it be delivered in less than a year? A tougher Rwanda Bill? I’m not at all sure that there is a majority in the Commons for any of these proposals.
Of course, the new leader could go straight to the voters and ask for a mandate. However, this person – let us call her Kenny Mordenoch – would have to answer some searching questions.
You say you want lower taxes, Ms Mordenoch. But why have you served in a Cabinet that took the tax burden to a record high? You claim to want lower immigration. Why didn’t you resign from a Government that ran it at record levels? You have come out against the Net Zero targets. Why have you been supporting them for at least the last four years?
Meanwhile, the ghosts of the last decade would be rattling Mordenoch’s windows. Boris Johnson’s band of devotees would raise their tumblers to the great blond beast over the water, as ageing Jacobites once toasted the Cardinal Duke of York.
Liz Truss’s supporters would continue their quest to prove the British people wrong and their heroine right. The left of the Parliamentary Party would chafe. All would demand a place in the sun, if not one at the table. The hokey cokey that has seen record numbers of Tory MPs go on the front bench and then off it would strike up once again. Shake it all about!
But let’s suppose for a moment that Mordenoch wanted a few months in office to show voters what she could do. After all, the Government has a majority of 54. So no problem. But hang on a moment.
The Conservative majority in 2019 was 80. What’s happened to it? The answer is that scandal, by-elections and controversy have worn it down. Mull the list of former Conservative MPs in the Commons’ fastest-growing group – the independents. Then think about by-elections to come and some of those that have happened.
Have you been not been awarded the peerage you think you deserve? Fine, then – just push off, and hand the seat to Labour. Is there green work available to you outside the Commons? If so, don’t just resign the whip. Stand down, and force a by-election in a seat soon to vanish.
In the event of a third deposed leader, the collapse of the old military culture in the Commons, and MPs stampeding for jobs before the likely loss of their seats, I’m not at all sure that Mordenoch would last six months. I know that some non-Tories hate the Conservative Party. But not half as much as Conservative factions sometimes seem to hate each other.
And what about the poor old voters? The Conservatives might be able to impose a third successive leader who hasn’t been endorsed by the voters on the Commons. But it has a way of forcing general elections when they feel they’re required. Remember 2019.
Perhaps I’m wrong. Maybe Mordenoch could somehow force conservative change through the Commons. Or present herself to the voters as a fresh new face, and her Party as a revived, united force. Is it possible? I suppose so. Is it likely? Frankly, I think the voters would view yet another leadership contest, given the gravity of current events here and abroad, as a masterclass in self-indulgence.
Yes, the alternative is bleak. One needs no new opinion poll to know that, as a party leader, Rishi Sunak is failing – just as Truss failed before him, albeit more spectacularly, and Johnson failed before her, leaving behind the record immigration and taxes of which many Tories complain.
But there would be irony in a lemming rush for change. This week’s leadership flap began with that Telegraph poll. Most Conservative MPs are desparate to avoid a general election any time soon. It may not have occured to some that bringing down the Rwanda Bill could bring about precisely the outcome they want to avoid.