Why the Tories can’t replace Boris with a Remainer

Readers of a certain vintage will remember the 1980s heyday of the light entertainment show Blind Date.

A series of well-scrubbed young men and women would compete to be taken out by a potential paramour who was hidden on the other side of a screen.

They would begin their moment in the spotlight with a tightly-scripted introduction in which they would offer their name and where they were from. The mass television audience, who had the advantage of being able to see each contestant, would very often form an instant impression based on these few seconds of exposure and its own prejudices.

I have often thought this merciless formula is not a bad approximation for the challenge a new political leader faces when seeking to make an impression beyond the party faithful.

According to the bookies’ odds, what the electorate is most likely to hear next from the Conservative party is: ‘Hi, my name is Jeremy and I’m from Surrey.’ For the former health secretary Jeremy Hunt has assumed the mantle of favourite to take over if and when Boris Johnson is moved on.

Imagine the smart and smooth Jeremy on a stool next to smart and smooth Keir, also from Surrey, and Ed, the wannabe-smoothie MP for Kingston-Upon-Thames, Surrey. All three educated at schools that were either fee-paying from the off or fee-paying by the time they had passed through. Peas in a pod comes to mind. And eminently forgettable ones at that.

All three also energetically backed Remain in the EU referendum which ushered in such a radical realignment of the British political map. All three have conducted their political careers without giving the slightest sign of being worried about the strains that unprecedented levels of immigration have placed upon social cohesion, basic neighbourliness, working class pay rates or access to public services.

The bookies odds also tell us that second favourite in the Tory leadership stakes is Tom from Tonbridge – Mr Tugendhat being another smoothie-chops Remainer from a prosperous establishment family and representing a leafy Home Counties constituency.

In fact all four top contenders for the Conservative crown – Liz Truss and Ben Wallace are the other two – supported Remain in 2016. Now, you may say that this is all water under the bridge – Brexit happened and voters care far more about other priorities these days etc.

In which case, you’d be wrong. Because Brexit and the reaction of British politics to it was the event that upended the politics of Britain, dropping into the Conservative lap an election-winning coalition of traditional shire Tories and working class ‘Red Wallers’ alienated by Labour’s neglect of their towns, laxity on immigration, readiness to block the referendum result and general lack of patriotism.

Larger-than-life Boris Johnson, with his two key messages of Getting Brexit Done and Levelling Up, was catnip to these new Tory voters. While polls show many are presently angry with him for breaking the lockdown laws he made them follow, it is yet to be shown that Starmer has connected with them sufficiently to secure their votes. Bold, thinking-outside-the-box initiatives like the Rwanda migrant deal may well win them back for Johnson.

Imagine that such voters see the Tory party dump the charismatic figure who won them over and present them instead with an identikit ‘liberal’ Conservative of the sort that had never won them over in the first place – a lower wattage version of David Cameron.

Imagine too that such a figure would complete a clean sweep of major party leaders who would like Britain to be in the European Union. While Hunt or Tugendhat might not instigate a Rejoin movement themselves, could they be trusted to fight like lions against any such move coming from Starmer, Sturgeon, Davey and the other left-of-centre leaders? Hardly.

Johnson’s status as the man who led the Leave campaign and who continues to be the pre-eminent thorn in the side of a despised political establishment are massive advantages when it comes to wooing Red Wall voters again in 2024. His lockdown flouting is clearly a big negative and his foolish tilt to the liberal left throughout 2021, after Dominic Cummings had left his side, also weighs against him.

But replacing him with anyone who was presented with a once-in-a-lifetime chance to fight for the United Kingdom to become a sovereign, self-governing democracy in charge of its own borders again and then chose not to would be deathwish politics on the part of the Tories.

We Leave voters generally realise that we are so suspicious of potential moves to reverse or dilute Brexit that we often appear ridiculous to Remain-voting acquaintances. But after all the establishment plots we had to see off to get this far, we also know that just because we are paranoid, it doesn’t follow that they aren’t out to get us. No Remainers Allowed.