I have a theory about intra-Johnson family politics. Some time in 2017 or 2018 Stanley agreed to shut up about his opposition to Brexit if Boris dropped his climate scepticism and threw himself wholesale into green issues. A truce between father and son certainly seemed to emerge around that time, and Boris, the man who a few years earlier had written that wind farms ‘couldn’t pull the skin off a rice pudding’ was reborn an environmentalist.
If I am right, Boris sure kept his side of the bargain. But if so, Stanley evidently no longer feels bound to keep quiet about Brexit, or even to remain loyal to the party which his son once led and for which he once stood as a Westminster candidate. Johnson pere announced last night, on the eve of the election, that he intended to vote ‘tactically’ for the Lib Dem candidate in the seat of Queens Park and Maida Vale. ‘Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the Conservatives actually managed to make a Labour seat go Lib Dem,’ he said, by way of explanation.
It is the Tory party of the Corn Laws – but with the corn replaced with beavers and wading birds
Were the Conservatives starting in a distant third place in the constituency Stanley’s plan might have some logic to it. Yet, in 2019 it was the Conservatives who came second, with 19.8 per cent of the vote, while the Lib Dems were third on 13.9 per cent. His vote is only tactical if he is intent on pushing the Conservatives into third place and destroying their chances of winning the seat in future elections. I think the other part of Stanley’s explanation for voting Lib Dem is closer to the truth: that he likes the LibDems’ policy of ‘rebuilding bridges with the EU’, as well as their environmental policy.
The Conservative party is clearly going to have to do a lot of rebuilding after this miserable election campaign. It has a lot of support to win back over from all kinds of quarters – over what will no doubt be many years. But if I were advising the party I wouldn’t suggest that it starts by reaching out to Stanley Johnson and his brand of green Conservatism. The Conservatives’ uncritical adoption of net zero during Boris’ time as PM has antagonised many of the party’s less well-off supporters, who face being priced off the roads, landed with large bills for insulating their homes and fitting heat pumps.
As well as damning Rishi Sunak for his very modest relaxation of some net zero targets, Stanley Johnson, along with Zac Goldsmith, has been a leading advocate of ‘rewilding’ of the countryside. It is a misnomer because it doesn’t really mean letting the countryside run wild – which would cost no public money or require any effort whatsoever. It involves landowners seeking public money to manage large swathes of Britain in ways which they find more interesting, either by creating woodlands, marshland, or by re-introducing species which have been long gone from the British countryside.
That is very nice for landowners, especially given that the government’s rewilding cash doesn’t usually come with any condition requiring them to allow the hoi polloi onto their land. It is not so good for farmers who have been pushed off the land to make way for the new nature reserves, nor for Britain’s self-sufficiency in food, which has already fallen from 78 per cent in the mid 1980s to around 60 per cent in recent years.
Almost everyone is concerned about the environment, but stinging taxpayers to fund private nature reserves reeks of privilege and a contempt for the poor. It is the Tory party of the Corn Laws – but with the corn replaced with beavers and wading birds. If I were charged with rebuilding Tory support I would gladly let the Lib Dems have Stanley Johnson – and concentrate on regaining the voters lost to Nigel Farage.
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