28 Britain The EconomistAugust 31st 2019
T
he rebel boot is on the other foot. For years the most promi-
nent Tory troublemakers were Eurosceptics, who were willing
to do anything to get Britain out of the European Union. Now the
Eurosceptics have captured the government and the most promi-
nent rebels are Euro-moderates, who are willing to do anything to
prevent Britain from leaving the euwithout a deal.
The insurgents are about 40 strong, though not all will vote in
the same way at the same time. They are a looser alliance than the
old rebels who, in the form of the European Research Group, had
their own whips and party line. But Boris Johnson’s increasingly
hardline policies have stiffened their spines. The alliance contains
a collection of Tory grandees, including five former cabinet minis-
ters, and a smaller group of escapees, such as Sir Oliver Letwin and
Guto Bebb, who have decided to stand down at the next election.
Ruth Davidson’s resignation as leader of the Scottish Conserva-
tives has weakened Toryism north of the border and provided the
rebels with another example of the cost of Mr Johnson’s policies.
The alliance contains some of the oddest rebels ever assembled
in politics. Philip Hammond, the closest thing the alliance has got
to a leader, joined the Conservative Party when he was still at
school and spent the past nine years as transport secretary, foreign
secretary and chancellor of the exchequer, before quitting in the
last days of Theresa May’s government. His understated manner
and fondness for economic orthodoxy earned him the nickname
“spreadsheet Phil” (though he is much more entertaining in priv-
ate than his public persona suggests). When he voted against the
government on the Northern Ireland bill last month it was the first
time he had broken with his party in 22 years, which is not some-
thing that could be said of many Brexiteers.
In his essay of 1919 on “Politics as a Vocation”, Max Weber made
a distinction between the “ethic of responsibility” and the “ethic of
conviction”. The ethic of responsibility is all about pragmatism—
doing what you can to keep the show on the road—whereas the
ethic of conviction is all about moral purity. Mr Hammond is the
embodiment of the first, just as Dominic Cummings, Mr Johnson’s
chief of staff and, according to his critics, unelected deputy prime
minister, is the embodiment of the second.
David Gauke is a solicitor by profession who ended up as LordChancellor. Dominic Grieve is another lawyer—a qc,no less—who
served as attorney-general. Greg Clark is a former management
consultant who was a quietly effective secretary of state for busi-
ness. The only member of the alliance who has the whiff of the re-
bel about him is Rory Stewart, who spent years wandering around
dangerous bits of the world as a latter-day Lawrence of Arabia. But
Mr Stewart is also a worshipper of British institutions, whose cv
includes working as a tutor to Princes William and Harry and serv-
ing in the army and the Foreign Office.
These odd rebels bring a formidable range of skills to their mis-
sion. As a former foreign secretary and chancellor, Mr Hammond
has a network of contacts both in Britain and the wider eu. He also
knows as much as anybody about the potential impact of a no-deal
Brexit on business. Mr Gauke is one of the most popular mps in Par-
liament—“clever”, “subtle” and “humorous” are a few of the adjec-
tives that fellow members shower on him. Sir Oliver and Mr Grieve
are both veterans of the “May wars” to prevent the government
from steamrolling Parliament and have created a store of tem-
plates and strategies. Mr Grieve also has close relations with Sir
Keir Starmer, Labour’s Brexit spokesman. Mr Stewart single-hand-
edly lit up the recent Tory leadership campaign with his impro-
vised walkabouts (which he has recently resumed) and excited a
new generation of young people about Conservatism. “Rory is a bit
of a messiah,” says an mpwho has known him for years, “but at
least messiahs have a way of making converts.”
The rebels should be under no illusion about how difficult their
job is. This is not a normal government. It is dominated by brutal
ideologues who will use any smear (“traitor”, “collaborator”, “fifth-
columnist”) to defeat their opponents. On August 28th Mr Johnson
made the extraordinary move of asking the queen to suspend Par-
liament from September 11th to October 14th, in an attempt to re-
duce the number of days that mps have to prevent a no-deal exit on
October 31st—a move that Mr Hammond described as a “constitu-
tional outrage” and “profoundly undemocratic”.
But the rebels have two important things on their side. The
most obvious is numbers. Suspending Parliament is a sign of Mr
Johnson’s weakness, not his strength. The prime minister has a
working majority of only one. The bulk of mps are opposed to a no-
deal Brexit. And Parliament has a good record of winning its battles
with the executive. Mrs May lost three times, despite throwing all
the government’s time and resources for two years behind getting
her deal through. The second thing on the rebels’ side is fear. Sever-
al senior members of Mr Johnson’s government are privately terri-
fied that his “do or die” tactics may sink the economy and destroy
the Conservative Party for a generation. As Brexit day approaches
and the pound sinks, bankruptcies rise, shortages loom and civil
disorder resumes in Northern Ireland, the people who crack may
not be the Europeans but some unexpected Johnson loyalists.In search of a cause
The rebels’ deeper problem is what happens to them after October
31st. The Eurosceptics reshaped British politics because they had a
single aim and unflinching determination. The Euro-moderates
are united on little other than preventing no-deal. Some want a
second referendum to overturn Brexit, some want a version of Mrs
May’s deal, and some may even want a long-term realignment of
politics which would consign the Brexiteers to a party of their own.
The alliance could easily fracture as rapidly as it has formed. It is
worryingly easy to lose control of a party to the men and women of
conviction. It is much more difficult to win it back. 7Bagehot The new Tory rebels
An unlikely bunch of Conservatives are bent on taking no-deal off the table