The Economist November 13th 2021 Britain 61LearningfromPaterson
S
ome politicaldramas flare up briefly; others redraw the politi
cal landscape. The debacle in the House of Commons on No
vember 3rd and 4th, when Boris Johnson tried to tear up the sys
tem of parliamentary oversight to prevent the suspension of Owen
Paterson, a friend and mp, only to reverse course, looks like the
second type. As furious Conservative mps complained about being
treated as cannon fodder, it strained their faith in the prime min
ister’s judgment and undermined the whips’ authority. It also gave
fresh juice to other inquiries into Tory conduct, including Mr
Johnson’s recent holiday at a Spanish villa, payment for seats in
the House of Lords and the extraparliamentary legal career of Sir
Geoffrey Cox, a former attorneygeneral who earned £900,000
($1.2m) in the past year. A YouGov poll after the fateful vote on No
vember 3rd found that a Tory lead of 6% had narrowed to 1%.
Marxist theoreticians argue that, as Hegel put it, beyond a cer
tain point “merely quantitative differences...pass into qualitative
changes”. Mr Paterson has stepped down, but for the prime minis
ter the affair may mark the moment when his accumulating errors
and uturns, from getting friends to pay for expensive wallpaper
in his residence to changing tack repeatedly on lockdowns, be
comes a qualitative shift in public opinion.
Explanations for such a catastrophic misstep range from gen
erous (the prime minister merely wanted to protect a friend and
ally) to cynical (he sought to neuter the standards commission be
fore it pronounced on his own actions). But one is particularly
compelling: that he was unduly influenced by a clique of ageing
Brexiteers. Behind the Paterson debacle stands a group of broth
ersinarms who served shoulder to shoulder in the antiEuro
pean trenches for decades. The hard core, Sir Iain Duncan Smith,
Sir Bill Cash, David Davis and Sir Bernard Jenkin, were critics of the
Maastricht Treaty in the 1990s, “Vote No” warriors under David
Cameron, stalwarts of the proBrexit European Research Group,
selfstyled “Spartans” under Theresa May—and champions of Mr
Johnson as prime minister.
Dame Andrea Leadsom, who put forward the Paterson amend
ment, and Jacob ReesMogg, who did most to push it through,
were too young for the Maastricht wars. But they were there in
spirit (the infant ReesMogg was educated in Euroscepticism bySirBill).Lord(Charles) Moore, a former editor of the Daily Tele
graph, also played a pivotal role. He wrote columns in support of
Mr Paterson, his friend for 45 years, and organised a dinner at the
Garrick Club on November 2nd, at which Mr Johnson was fed
pheasant and claret, and brought round to their point of view.
The clique’s victory in the Brexit vote of 2016 has injected a tox
ic mix of triumphalism and paranoia into the heart of Conserva
tism. Its members see themselves as possessing a unique connec
tion with the British people, and a rare strategic genius. They think
they can achieve anything, as long as they exert sufficient pressure
and plot sufficiently thickly. But they also regard themselves as
beset by a hostile establishment that seeks to frustrate their will.
Lord Moore’s articlesare textbook examples of the style. He has ar
gued that the twoyear investigation into Mr Paterson “smacks of
political revenge”, and that the parliamentary standards commit
tee selectively targeted proBrexit mps while going easy on Re
mainers. He urged mps to reject the committee’s sentence as a way
of “reasserting the right of voters, not bureaucrats, to decide who
should make [the] law and ensure that it works”.
Successful political parties rely on their elders’ accumulated
wisdom to stop them making unforced errors. Even Margaret
Thatcher, a radical to her fingertips, paid close attention to Wil
liam Whitelaw, a moderate grandee—thus her immortal dictum
that “every prime minister needs a Willie”. But the Brexit wars
have removed a generation of “Willies” from the parliamentary
party, notably Sir Nicholas Soames, Sir Alan Duncan, Kenneth
Clarke, Patrick McLoughlin and Dominic Grieve. Politics has been
left in the hands of ageing zealots in the Commons and light
weight technocrats in Downing Street, such as Dan Rosenfield, Mr
Johnson’s chief of staff. The zealots appeal to Mr Johnson’s worst
trait, a tendency to believe that he is above accountability; the
technocrats lack the strength to rein their master in.
Younger mps were particularly furious about the Paterson
mess, not because they are antiBrexit saboteurs (most were fer
vently in favour of leaving the eu) but because they resent being
treated so cavalierly by people who wouldn’t recognise them in
the corridors of Westminster, let alone say hello. The brewing row
over extraparliamentary income sharpens their resentment. To
the ageing babyboomers within the Brexit clique, £100,000 a year
may sound like a reasonable second income; to the 2019 intake
representing workingclass “red wall” constituencies in the Mid
lands and north of England, it is serious money.
Mr Johnson now needs to break with the Brexit clique. He
should stop listening to the likes of Sir Iain and Mr Davis, who are
neither wise nor even particularly intelligent. Gargoyles like Mr
ReesMogg should be cleared out of frontline politics. In their
place, the prime minister should assemble a government of all the
Tory talents. The brightest and best of the rising generation should
be put on the fast track to high office. They’re not out to get you
Above all, he needs to break decisively with the triumphalistpara
noid mindset. Neither he nor anyone else has the right to force
through controversial legislation in the name of some mystical
connection with “the people”. Not everyone who resists his ac
tions is plotting to bring Britain back into the eu. The British es
tablishment, by and large, recognises that Brexit is a fait accompli
and the great task of the coming decadesis to make the best of it.
Mr Johnson can still repair the damageofthe past week, but only if
he takes it as a spur to party renewal.nBagehot
Boris Johnson needs to shake off the Brexit elite’s triumphalist, paranoid mindset