50 Britain The EconomistFebruary 3rd 2018
J
ACOB REES-MOGG is about as low on the Conservative Party’s
official pecking order as you can get. He doesn’t have a seat in
the cabinet, or the chairmanship of a Commons committee. He
has never graced the whips’ office. Judged in conventional terms,
his career since being elected asMPfor North EastSomerset in
2010 has failed to take off. Yet he is one of Britain’s most promi-
nent politicians. He is forever popping up on television or radio.
His gibes about “BRINO”—Brexit in name only—generate head-
lines. On February 1st a poll of Tory party members conducted by
ConservativeHome, an activists’ website, found thathe was the
top choice to succeed Theresa May, with 21% of the vote.
With the likes of Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, and Mi-
chael Gove, the environment secretary, bound by collective cabi-
net responsibility, Mr Rees-Mogg hasemerged as the leader of the
ultra-Brexiteer faction of the Tory party. He has served the longest
apprenticeship in Eurosceptic thinking in British history. His late
father, William Rees-Mogg, a former editor of the Times, was one
of the founders of the movement. Sir William Cash, another
Eurosceptic grandee, recalls tutoring the young Jacob in the cause.
Now he is increasingly the movement’s public face, as the leader
of the European Research Group, a caucus of Eurosceptic MPs.
He is also the object of a personality cult. Young Tories (an ad-
mittedly limited group) embrace him with the same cooing en-
thusiasm that young Labourites have for Jeremy Corbyn. Georgia
“Toff” Toffolo, this year’s winner of “I’m a Celebrity...Get Me Out
of Here!” has declared him “dishy”. (It is a measure of how absurd
Britain has become that one of the other “celebrities” in this pro-
gramme was Mr Johnson’s father, Stanley.) One young man has
had Mr Rees-Mogg’s name tattooed on his chest. There is talk of
“Moggmentum” to take on Labour’sMomentum.
But he is more than justthe leader of a faction or a cult. He is
also the embodiment of the average Conservative Party member.
A recent survey by Queen Mary University of London painted
the fullest picture to date ofTory members. Some 44% are over 65
and 71% are men. They thinkausterity hasbeen a good thing.
They believe in traditional values and harsh prison sentences.
They love Brexit—and notjust any old Brexit, but the full-strength
sort, leaving both the customsunion and the single market.
These activists put up with David Cameron, and his embraceof Notting Hill values, so long as he was winning. But their hearts
lie with Mr Rees-Mogg, not justbecause they agree with his views
but because they love his style. He is the blue passport in human
form, the red telephone box made flesh, the Royal Yacht Britannia
in a pinstripe suit; a reminder of a world in which traditional
Britons didn’t have to apologise for being who they were and
bow before the gods of multiculturalism, feminism and health
and safety.
Mr Rees-Mogg is blessed with some everyday political skills,
including a quick wit. When David Dimbleby, a broadcaster,
ribbed him for having gone to Eton, he shot back that he had been
there with Mr Dimbleby’s son. He is a good phrasemaker. He is
also preternaturally polite. Confronted with a group of protesters
who called him “despicable”, he calmly explained that “just be-
cause you disagree with somebody that doesn’t make them a bad
person.” But his greatest political skill is his ability to play up his
personal foibles. Most upper-class people who end up in politics
moderate their accents and mainstream their views. Mr Rees-
Mogg has chosen the opposite strategy.
The danger of this is that it turns you into a caricature—even a
grotesque. Mr Rees-Mogg isnot so much a person as a collection
of foibles. He speaks with an Edwardian accent. His idea of busi-
ness casual is a two-piece suit. He uses words such as floccinauci-
nihilipilification in parliamentary debates. The father of six chil-
dren (the youngest of whom is called Sixtus), he admits that he
has never changed a nappy.
But turning himself into a caricature has brought Mr Rees-
Mogg two big advantages. It hasallowed him to stand out from
the crowd, like a peacock in a coop of battery chickens. He likes to
present himself as an anachronism—“the honourable member
for the 18th century”, as some nickname him—but in many ways
he is a post-modern politician who, rather like Donald Trump,
understands that the best way to attract attention in a world of
babble is to turn yourself into a freak. The second is that it has al-
lowed him to masterthe current mood of anti-politics. The Blair-
Cameron era saw politicians of all parties conforming to a partic-
ular type, wearing sensible suits, spouting sensible views and
smugly explaining that “there is no alternative”. The era also saw
all politicians labelled liars and frauds. Mr Rees-Mogg is popular
on the right for the same reason that Mr Corbyn is popular on the
left: voters read their refusal to become part of the blob as proof
of their authenticity and unbending commitment to the truth.The meaning of Mogg
There is one striking difference between Mr Corbyn’s authentic-
ity and Mr Rees-Mogg’s, though. Mr Corbyn’s is much closer to
the spirit of modern Britain. A successful investor, Mr Rees-Mogg
lives in a manorhouse, cushioned by a fortune of more than
£100m ($140m). A committed Catholic, he says that he obeys “the
hierarchy of the Roman Catholic church, not the whips’ office”
and opposes abortion even in cases of rape. He even took the
family nanny with him when campaigning in a safe Labour seat
(though, out of deference to local opinion, he drove his mother’s
Mercedes rather than his own Bentley).
MostMPs know that a Rees-Mogg-led Conservative Party
would be crucified in an election. But they also know that if Mrs
May’s leadership ischallenged, Mr Rees-Mogg might just emerge
from the resulting scrum as the man holding the ball, since party
members make the final choice. Fear of such a calamity is doing
as much as anything to keep Mrs May safe in Downing Street. 7The pinstriped populist
An eccentric backbencher has become one of the most important politicians in the countryBagehot