To Bournemouth, where two-hundred odd attendees of the Conservative Democratic Organisation are meeting for their first conference. The CDO has been labelled a ‘Tory Momentum’ and a ‘Bring Back Boris’ effort by its opponents, though its chairman David Campbell-Bannerman insists that it is nothing of the sort. ‘We are not enemies of Central Office’ he told attendees this morning, despite warning that current membership trends suggest ‘the party is dying as an institution’ and bemoaning the ‘coup against Boris.’ Lord Cruddas, the CDO’s president, went further still, under the watchful eye of the Eastleigh enforcer Paul Holmes, CCHQ’s man on the scene. Cruddas lambasted the ‘shameful behaviour’ of the MPs who plotted against Johnson and questioned the current direction of Rishi Sunak’s government:
Are we seeing the reversal of the 2019 manifesto by moving us closer to the European Union via the Windsor Framework which directly breaches the 2019 manifesto? Are we being moved to being a centre left party or a social democratic party of higher taxes aligned with the European Union by delaying the repeal of retained EU laws and keeping us within the European Court of Human Rights and not securing our borders?
But support for the Prime Minister was on hand from one unlikely source. Step forward Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Trussketer who once dubbed Rishi Sunak a ‘socialist.’ Having likened the CDO to the Primrose League, he urged attendees not to use the new vehicle to seek a change of leader this side of an election:
Many of us were very unhappy about what happened last year and the changes of leader. But think very carefully: we must not change leader again. We must support Rishi Sunak to the general election otherwise we will be toast. Because any party that changes leader twice in a year, falls in the opinion polls and looks ridiculous. If we were to do it again, how would we ever get anyone to vote for us on the basis that practically every member of the Tory party became leader for a day? It would make us look absurd.
Well, they do say loyalty is the Tory party’s secret weapon…
Comments