Britain's Next Prime Minister
This next week will be among the most consequential in contemporary British politics. Ballots are sent out to Tory party members on August 1st, and they can begin voting right away. Whoever wins becomes Prime Minister in September, without first going through a General Election. So this next week is crucial for the two leading candidates to form final impressions before voting begins.
To help us understand the process, the candidates, and what this all means for the UK at home, the UK’s economy, and the UK in the world, we are joined by James Forsyth, the political editor of The Spectator magazine. He is also a weekly columnist for The Times of London. He previously was a journalist for UK publications The Sun and The Mail.
Transcript
DISCLAIMER: THIS TRANSCRIPT HAS BEEN CREATED USING AI TECHNOLOGY AND MAY NOT REFLECT 100% ACCURACY.
[00:00:00] You're seeing really big ideological divides. between the two candidates, right? So you've got Rishi Sunak saying that, you know, it's a fairy tale to think that you can just cut taxes now and everything will be great. And you've got Liz Truss saying taxes are way too high, and we're going to have a recession unless we cut taxes.
And, you know, there's an old maxim in British politics that oppositions don't win elections, governments lose them. And at the moment, the Tories look in danger. Of going down that path.
This next week will be among the most consequential and contemporary British politics. Ballots are sent out to close to a couple hundred thousand Tory party members on August 1st, and then they can begin voting right away. Whoever wins moves into number 10 Downing Street and becomes Prime Minister in September without first having [00:01:00] to go through a general election.
So this next week is crucial for the two leading candidates to form final impressions before voting begins. Raising the stakes on Monday night's debate televised on BBC One for those of you that want to watch. I'll be tuned in, being the political junkie that I am when it comes to all things UK. But to help us understand the process, the candidates, and what this all means for the UK at home The UK's economy and the UK in the world, we are joined by James Forsyth, who is about as dialed in as anyone I know in Westminster.
James is the political editor of The Spectator magazine. He's also a weekly columnist for The Times of London. He previously was a journalist for UK publications The Sun and The Mail and is a regular. on the Spectator Podcasts. Again, the most consequential week in contemporary British politics coming this week.
This is Call Me Back.
So whenever I want to get a download on what's [00:02:00] actually happening In UK politics, I turned to my longtime friend, James Forsythe from the Spectator in the UK, who's based in London. He's also a columnist for the Times of London, and he has been completely crazed covering this crazy leadership race in the Tory party.
But I'm grateful he's taken a few minutes to chat with us. James, thanks for joining the conversation. Pleasure to be with you, Dan. Um, okay, James. So, first of all, this next week is crucial, if not possibly decisive in determining who the next prime minister of the UK will be. I think most listeners of ours, uh, when I just speak to folks, you know, on the fly, don't, they just think, you know, there's, there's a, there's, if they put it in U.
S. terms, there's a primary now, right? There's a, the equivalent of like a primary for the next couple of months, and then in a couple months, A leader will be chosen, a nominee will be chosen. And this is [00:03:00] different for two reasons. One, this next week is the ball game, pardon the American sports reference. Uh, and two, what, unlike the US process in this particular case, when the leader is chosen, that leader immediately becomes prime minister, doesn't have to go through a general election.
So I just want to. set the stage for our listeners on that. I want you to explain why this week is so important. Let's start with that. So because the although the this contest doesn't end until September the 5th, the ballot papers will be posted out at the beginning of August and Tory members are organized people who respond to mail by return of post, and based on some historical estimates, as much as half of the membership might essentially vote as soon as they get their ballot paper.
And so this coming week is absolutely crucial for the two candidates. Polling Tory members is notoriously difficult, but at the moment it, it looks like Liz Truss has quite a substantial lead. And so that is, [00:04:00] this week is vital because what you also see in the polling is that the Tory electorate is very volatile.
If you look at the same polling that gives Liz Truss a big lead, it also suggests that the two candidates they're choosing between are even now their third and fourth choice respectively. Two candidates who got knocked out in the parliamentary rounds, Kemi Badenoch and Penny Mordaunt, are both the first choice of more Tory members than either of the candidates who've gone to the knockout round.
Okay, so hold on. I want, I want to get into the individual candidates in a moment. So just again, on the process, so as you say, ballots go out. So, so actually let's, let's rewind. Let's talk about how we got here. So Boris announces on July 7th that he's resigning immediately. And he says he'll stay in office.
He'll Downing Street until a new leader is chosen, right? Because the Tories have the majority in Parliament. They have an election mandate. So. And, and, and so [00:05:00] since the party has the majority, it's whoever's leading the party's prime minister. They don't have to go to the general, to the, to the elect, to the electorate for a vote.
They just have to have the party choose the leader and that leader becomes the prime minister. So Boris announces on July 7th that he's stepping down. And a what happens after that just briefly explain for especially for us listeners what happened after Boris on July 7th announced in terms of the process for choosing a new leader than a whole ton of people said, I want to do the job because you become prime minister straight away here.
This is this is the only way in which you can become prime minister about having to win a general election first. And there were about 11 or 12 candidates who declared they then had a breakneck parliamentary process to whittle it down to Um, and the way that works is. That the way that works is there's every day there's a round of voting and the lowest candidate gets knocked out and the members of Parliament the Tory members of Parliament are voting [00:06:00] and whoever finishes last in each day's voting gets knocked out So that's how you whittle it down from 11 or 12 candidates to two candidates it would be the equivalent in the u.
s. say if the president United States was chosen by Republican members of Congress or Democratic members of Congress, whichever, whichever way you're looking at it, voting, the members of Congress, not actual party voters, party, primary voters. You know, not activists around the country, but actual sitting members of Congress voting for a candidate to lead the party.
That is what, what those rounds were all about. Yeah, and it's, it's, I suppose it's most like in U. S. terms, uh, picking a new leader of a house of representatives, for example. Um, right. And so That process is quite brutal, because it's very short. Um, uh, the polite way of putting it is that the Conservative Parliamentary Party is regarded as the most sophisticated electorate in the world.
You know, [00:07:00] which means that there is an awful lot of horse trading, you never quite know what people are going to do. And what was interesting about this time round was that in previous Uh, when Boris Johnson was elected, right from the off, he had a commanding lead. It was clear that it was him. This time round, Rishi Sunak led all the way through the process, but, uh, even at the end of the process, uh, he's someone I've known for years, he only had Uh, 38 percent of the vote.
Now, that is still more than anybody else, but, you know, uh, both Theresa May and Boris Johnson had over 50 percent of the vote by the time it came to the end of the parliamentary phase. Okay. So, you then went to the country. So it goes through that process with the members of Parliament, the Tory members of Parliament, voting, voting, voting, voting every day.
Whittles down the list to two candidates, and then those two candidates are the only two that go before the Tory members, Tory party members [00:08:00] across the country, the grassroots of the party, the equivalent in our, in the U. S. context of a U. S. primary. That, it's at that point that the actual, it's most comparable to a primary.
We're actually going to voters across the country rather than parliament. Although far fewer people vote. I mean, no one quite knows what the precise number of Tory members are. But it's somewhere between 160, 000 and 200, 000. So 160 to 200, 000 now vote on these two candidates. Out of a population of 60 million.
So this is, this is not So this is wild. So 160 to 200, 000 people are choosing, for a country of 60 million, are going to choose the next Prime Minister of the UK. Okay. And, and just precedent for this, because this is a little out of the ordinary, right? So normally, the party chooses the leader. And then the leader of the party goes before the general election.
Here, we're bypassing that because Boris is resigning in the middle of a term. Precedent for that is Theresa May, Boris Johnson. Uh, remember Boris Johnson became Prime Minister in 2019. [00:09:00] And he chose to go to the country early. But, you know, he, and because it was a hung parliament, that's why he wanted to go.
But, you know. In Britain, we have, we, it is now quite free, it is now happens more often than not that the governing party will change leader at some point in the parliament. So, uh, if you think through recent British prime ministers, Boris Johnson, Theresa May, Gordon Brown, uh, John Major. What about Thatcher to John Major?
Was that the same thing? Exactly. And in some ways that is the nearest precedent because, uh, the Tories were behind in the polls under Margaret Thatcher. They changed leader. This is what a lot of Tories hope will happen again. They changed leader and suddenly it felt like a new government. It felt fresh and different and they then won an unexpected general election victory, uh, two years later.
So the two candidates are going before the membership broadly again, the equivalent of like a primary electorate in the United States. They're going that process begins. Effectively now [00:10:00] and on the one hand it looks like there's seven weeks until that outcome is determined But to your point, this is the week that that that is most important because on August 1st The ballots go out to the members, and the members can vote at any time, from when they receive them in early August, the ballots, until September 5th, but you think most of that voting is going to happen early.
That is the theory, is that, that, that, that, that, based on previous behavior. a good, a large amount of the electorate will vote as soon as they get their ballot paper. Now, it might be slightly different this time around because it's August, lots of people are away on holiday. It also might be different this time around because, uh, I think unlike in 2019 when nearly all Tory members knew what they were going to do when they get their ballot paper, I think people are less certain this time around.
Um, so, uh, that might not happen, but I think it is, I think certainly. [00:11:00] You will want to be in a strong position on August 1st because, you know, every day from August 1st onwards, there will be fewer available voters to reach. There is this quirk where voters can vote. early and then change their vote? This, this is slightly mad, but you, everyone is allowed to vote.
I mean, it's unbelievable to me. I mean, it's, I mean, just, it seems fraught for conspiracy theories and chaos. This is not as Chicago as it sounds, right? Yeah. So explain. So essentially, everyone get, you can either vote on a postal ballot or on an online ballot. The theory goes that if you vote both ways, Only one of those votes will count for obvious reasons, and it will be the last vote that you cast.
Now, I don't think many people are going to go and change their vote. in that period, unless there is some dramatic revelation [00:12:00] about one of the candidates. I think if it's a, if it's an incremental difference in performance during the process, I think there'll be very few people who bother to go and change their vote.
That, that's not going to be a large number of people. But I think what it does is it means that if some massive new development takes place during the month of August, people might well do so. So I'm just curious online voting. I mean, it seems, um, you know, there are people in the, there are groups. In the US who are pushing for online voting and and it's met with serious resistance because the potential for hacking and bugs and And all sorts of mischief making and and you know uneven reliability Does any of this color how people I mean I I talked to friends of mine in the UK about online voting in these leadership races, and they treat it like it's a Like, it's a, I don't know, it's just, it's not controversial.
It is remarkably uncontroversial here. Uh, I [00:13:00] mean, one Tory MP was joking to me that when Vladimir Putin wins as a writing candidate, we might think that someone has, um, hacked into the process. Uh, I, I think it is surprising how uncontroversial it is. Um, but, you know, the, I mean, the theory goes that it's So, there are two reasons I think why there is this online voting element.
One, because it is August, and A lot of people, we get longer holidays than you guys do. A lot of people will be away for the majority of August. The second reason is, uh, I think the party officialdom were very worried. Uh, there is, there are kind of, in almost every, um, public service in the UK right now.
There are arguments about pay. We, we, we, like you, have high inflation. The government is trying to keep a lid on public sector pay increases. The public sector pay, the public sector unions are obviously arguing for bigger increases. And I think one of their worries was that if they didn't have an online voting element, you might end up with a postal strike that would cripple the whole ballot.[00:14:00]
Um, And that, you know, the politics of it would be too delicious, which is, you know, you want to elect a new prime minister, you've got to pay us properly kind of thing. So, uh, I think that, you know, I think that is why there is this online element, but I agree with you that, that, uh, if there is a contentious result, I think it will obviously become a subject of much greater argument.
So now let's talk about these two candidates, uh, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak. Um, can you just provide our listeners with a little bit of background on each one of them and how they're positioning themselves in this race? So Liz Truss is the foreign secretary. Um, she was previously the international trade secretary.
She is the longest serving minister in the cabinet. Um, and she campaigned for remain in 2016. So the key point, 2016, the debate over Brexit, uh, Boris Johnson was, uh, on, on the front [00:15:00] lines of the, of the pro leave, the Brexit campaign. And Liz Truss, who's now one of these two finalists was on the other side.
She was, she was worked with David Cameron and George Osborne and campaigning for. Uh, England staying in the UK, the UK staying in the EU, yeah. And despite that though, she has become, uh, in some ways, the, the, the, the caucus within the party that is the most hard line on the Brexit question is called the European Research Group.
And by the end of the process, they were backing her. Uh, that is because, I think, in large part, she takes the toughest line on the Northern Ireland Protocol, which is the question of, how do you solve this question of, um, Northern, the fact that Northern Ireland has a border with the Republic, but is also part of the UK, and no one wants to go back to a kind of, uh, No one wants to go back to a kind of border where everyone has to, where traffic has to stop on the island of [00:16:00] Ireland.
And so the Northern Ireland Protocol was meant to be a fix to that. But in trying to fix that problem, it's created another problem because it's created a trade barrier within the UK, which obviously unionists in Northern Ireland don't like. And Liz Trust took over that portfolio. I think initially she made a kind of good faith effort to negotiate with the EU.
It got nowhere. She is now taking through parliament legislation that essentially says If you're not prepared to negotiate with us on this, we will just unilaterally disapply it. Um, and in part because of that and in part because she is offering, um, massive immediate tax cuts, about 38 billion pounds worth of tax cuts straight up.
Um, she has become the candidate of, uh, the European Research Group, who are the most hardline on the Brexit question. So they're like, would you say the European Research Group is like the Freedom Caucus in the Republican House Caucus, just a hardline [00:17:00] conservative group? Yeah, I mean, obviously UK and US politics are not directly analogous, but they are, they are You know, they have a kind of internal whip, and by the end of the process, they had all thrown their weight behind.
Pretty much, not all of them, but the vast majority of them had thrown their weight behind Liz Truss. And she, at the moment, is polling out front with the members. Um, and she is also, uh, making much of her loyalty to Boris Johnson. She said in an interview the other day that she wished he was still Prime Minister.
And she is trying to pick up that kind of vote. You, you referenced what her fiscal policy is. So she, so taxes in the UK are among the highest they've ever been in history, right? So there is, there is a debate in conservative circles in the UK about whether or not there needs to be some kind of tax reform, tax relief.
Uh, but obviously there's another side to the, that our debate, which is that the. [00:18:00] That kind of fiscal policy will be very inflationary and this is not the time to cut taxes, but she is firmly on the side of cutting taxes, right? Yeah, uh, she, I mean, uh, her approach is much more Reagan 81 than Thatcher 81.
In Britain in 1981, Margaret Thatcher actually raised taxes to try and get a grip on inflation. In 1981, Ronald Reagan, obviously cut taxes in the US. I mean, there are two crucial differences, which is the problem of the trust approach. One, when Ronald Reagan cut taxes, well, interest rates in the US, the federal fund rate was like 16 or 17%.
Right, right. Paul Volcker there cranking things up. We here we have incredibly low interest rates still, and the Bank of England is raising much, much more slowly than the Fed. They're still going in quarter point increases. Um, and the second difference is, you know, we obviously are not as lucky as you guys, you guys are the world's, you know, reserve currency.
And so therefore have I think a lot more latitude and [00:19:00] how you do these things than we do. But that is very much her positioning this time round, which is, you know, you can't tax your way to prosperity. So vote for me and I will cut taxes And again, this is significant, I mean, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that She could be prime minister in September, so it's not like a candidate makes these, you know, very ambitious promises to a, some could argue, pandering promises to, to a primary electorate and isn't in the U.
S. and doesn't actually have to serve in office for months and months or a year later, has to go through a general election, then has to go through a transition, then has to be sworn in, then has to build an administration, then has to deal with Congress, so there You know, many politicians have off ramps between when they make their pledges and when they actually have to govern in Liz trust case, she's advocating these policies and she literally [00:20:00] could be in number 10 Downing Street as prime minister in a couple of months.
Yeah, and she is promising an emergency budget within weeks of taking office. And the other thing to bear in mind is because if she became prime minister, she would become prime minister with the support of, uh, less than a third of the parliamentary party. She really would. Have no choice but to do what she said she was gonna do.
Um, and so a as you say, right, I, I don't think there is any off ramp for her from what she is committing to in this campaign. And one of the nature of the parliamentary process is as it went on, she only made it into second place in the final round of the parliamentary process. Previously, she had been back in third place, and so she was promising more and more tax cuts to try and garner support as the process went on.
So, uh, the kind of, the size of a tax cut offer she was offering by the end of the parliamentary stage was larger than what she was offering at the [00:21:00] beginning of it. And she would be inheriting a Tory majority of, what, they have like an ADC, uh, They've lost a few in, in scandals and by elections, but it's, it's a, yeah, it's a very, it's a comfortable enough majority to govern with until 2024 easily.
So she would have no excuse, you know, she, she, she, there's no, she should, if she's the leader of the party and the party has this massive majority that she would be inheriting, she would have no excuse for not implementing the agenda she had just campaigned on. And The other point here is that her argument is we need these tax cuts because of its cost of living crisis.
We have a energy cap in the UK so that you know, um, uh, the price of energy can't rise beyond a certain level for the consumer. That's partly why so many energy companies in Britain have gone bust. That, uh, the increase to that, from October will be announced in late August. So this cost of living crisis here [00:22:00] is going to get, is going to feel a lot worse in September than it feels today.
Now let's talk about Rishi Sunak, who you've known for some time. Uh, what, just talk about his, what, what, what, a little bit about his background and then what he's campaigning on and what kind of prime minister you think he would be. So Exchequer until, He resigned. Um, so the equivalent of our treasury secretary, basically saying I'm resigning two reasons.
One difference is over economic policy. And two, there was a scandal here about a politician called Chris Pincher, who had a government job. And he got drunk and groped someone. And number 10 said that, well, they didn't know about this behavior. It turned out that previously, There had been an incident, and Downing Street had been warned about his behavior, and various ministers went out and said, no, no, no one knew about this, and it turned out they did, [00:23:00] and after party gating and everything else, this was essentially the straw that broke the camel's back.
Um, so, he resigns over that, uh, and differences over economic policy, and that has definitely earned him the ire of those Uh, cabinet ministers who are closest to Boris Johnson, you know, the ultra lawless Boris Johnson hold him responsible for the fact that, you know, the whole premiership unraveled. Now, I personally think that, you know, the person who undid Boris Johnson's premiership was Boris Johnson, but, you know, yeah, lots of people blame him.
He also is in a very different position on tax cuts for his trust. He argues that the first thing you've got to do is grip inflation. That to cut taxes now would make inflation worse, and therefore that's a bad thing. So he says, yeah, we've got to get taxes down, but we've got to grip inflation first. He is essentially a kind of eat your greens message.
Uh, and then, you know, you can have a tax cut, but not, not yet. Um, [00:24:00] and so, despite the fact that he was a lever in 2016, When he was elected. So this is interesting. So Rishi Sunak was, was, so the way Liz Truss campaigned for Remain, uh, in the EU, Rishi Sunak was, was campaigning for Brexit. He was with Boris Johnson and Michael Gove and arguing that, that, uh, the UK needed to leave the EU.
Yeah. Uh, and so you would think that would put him with the base. And, you know, when he was elected, he's a, you know, he is a fiscal conservative. Um, and so you would have thought he was on the right. But because he has raised taxes, um, there is a kind of perception. There are, there is a chunk of the right of the party that says, no, no, no, no.
We don't want somebody to raise taxes. So, uh, he has. a slightly different appeal, I think, than you would have expected him to have within the parliamentary party at the beginning. And his challenge with the [00:25:00] grassroots where is to get over, I think, both the Boris Johnson factor, uh, and the taxes factor.
Now, I mean, that, that, that is going to be work for him, but I also think that, uh, there is a general perception backed up by the polling that suggests he would be a more formidable opponent for Labour. Uh, and I also think that, you know, we've had two debates in this process so far on TV and the kind of the snap polling afterwards had him, uh, coming second in the first one when there were, uh, uh, how many candidates, about, uh, five candidates on the stage and top in the second one when there were five candidates on the stage.
Um, so there's a big debate on the, on BBC one in prime time on Monday night. And that is a really big moment for him. He needs, in that debate, to, to turn in another good performance and say to Tory members, look, you know, put us side by [00:26:00] side, who do you want to pick? And, just, what, can you describe, he had his own scandal, uh, about six, eight months ago, regarding the, the, um, domicile status, uh, of, of his wife, uh, can you, and he weathered that, it seems, he seems to have weathered that, can you just describe what the, what the, uh, accusation was and how he came out of it?
So, his wife is an Indian citizen. And so she is non domiciled in the UK for tax purposes. This came out, uh, there was a mighty row about it. She said, even though I'm non domiciled, I'll choose to pay, um, UK tax on more of my income than I am legally required to because You know that she got she said that she felt that this her her tax arrangements were offending kind of what she called up kind of British sense of fairness they did that, you know, and then I think that that storm calmed down [00:27:00] And you know, he still managed to win the parliamentary round of the process But I think it, it, it, it, it, it was a difficult period for him because it came straight after a spring economic statement where previously a lot of what he had been doing had been, you know, uh, running the furlough scheme, which essentially was a scheme that paid people's wages when the economy was shut down.
That spring statement was the first time he, well, was one of the first times he delivered a lot of bad news. And a lot of people were like, oh, Don't like the sound of that. There's not enough help. There's not enough relief there. We don't like these taxes going up. So he had a difficult few months. I think he then weathered that and is now, um, but you know, I, I think if you'd said a year ago, you would have thought he was, he would have been a very strong favorite in this contest.
He is now in this members round going to have to come from behind. Why is it I'm perplexed by this. [00:28:00] The so about two thirds of the Tory members of parliament in their voting are for Sunak and trust. And yet, It's not where the membership, the, the, the equivalent of the primary voters are, uh, in terms of their first choices, and Sunak in particular seems to be underperforming so far with, according to the polling, of, of Tory members relative to Tory members of parliament, Tory activists versus Tory members of parliament.
What's the disconnect between what's happening among the Tory leadership, the Tory, uh, uh, parliamentary members versus the base of the party? So I think the base of the party is is keen on a fresh start. I mean, the base of the party likes, like, you know, new fresh faces. In that poll, I was talking about the number one was Kemi Badnok, who is a, you know, a junior minister.
And then another junior minister, Penny Mordaunt was number two. And I think they feel like after this Boris Johnson era, which is, [00:29:00] uh, has been, I think, exhausting is probably the best adjective for it. Um, they think, why don't we start afresh? I think Tory MPs are like, hang on a second, we're sending someone into Downing Street, they've got to be Prime Minister on day one, they've got to have experience.
And so that's why the MPs said, you know, the Foreign Secretary and the Chancellor. Two of the most senior jobs in government to the members, the members would I think, the members I think would have liked to have had the chance to choose someone totally fresh. I mean, the MPs sell, you know, to use an old Gordon Brown phrase, it's no time for a novice.
A few other questions before we let you go, uh, in terms of the Sunak versus, uh, trust policy agendas, uh, once they're prime minister, if either of them becomes prime minister, one of them will be prime minister, uh, will UK policy on Ukraine. Change at all, or do you feel that that's pretty locked in? Uh, I, I think UK um, Ukraine policy is, is [00:30:00] totally locked in.
I, you know, trust has been the Foreign Secretary Sun Acts being the chancellor. I don't, I don't think either of them will change that. Uh, I think the one thing I'll, the one thing I'll, I would guarantee you is that the first foreign visit that both of them make would be to Ukraine. Second. You mentioned Margaret Thatcher, uh, earlier in this podcast, and I've just heard in your commentary.
Uh, on the, on the Coffee House podcast and in conversations I've had with other, um, journos in London and Westminster, um, this sense that Thatcher in some ways hanging over this, uh, leadership race more so than, uh, in previous Tory leadership races. Does that sound right to you? If so, why? I think the reason why is, um, Boris Johnson was, was a, was a massively charismatic figure.
But he traveled light in ideological terms. Uh, and I think what the Tory [00:31:00] party would like to do would be to kind of go back to some of its ideological moorings. So that's why there are so many references to Thatcher. I also think that if you look at the age of the two candidates, they're both in their 40s.
They're very much kind of Thatcher's children, you know, that they, they, they're kind of the, the Britain, which they live in, that kind of, you know, the politics that was raging at the time that they were growing up was all about Margaret Thatcher. And I mean, that is why there have been so many references to her in this race.
And I also think that there, there is a, there is a Tory sense at the moment that they won this big majority, the biggest majority they've won since Thatcher. And, you know, there are reasons for this, obviously, COVID being one of them. But they haven't made as much use of that majority as the base of the party would have liked to have done.
It's hard to say, you know, in some ways [00:32:00] the problem was, the Tories in 2019 stood on this platform of get Brexit done, keep Jeremy Corbyn out of power. And the problem that they had was that by winning the election, they achieved those two things. They managed to break the Brexit deadlock in Parliament and defeat Jeremy Corbyn.
And a bit like the dog that catches the car, they didn't quite know what to do after that. Okay. Boris Johnson. Is, is it safe to say that he's done? Or are you of the view that you can never count Boris Johnson out? I mean, if you look at his career, uh, you know, as foreign minister in Theresa May's government, resigns from foreign minister, as foreign minister out of, in protest of some of the, uh, uh, We have permanent Brexit negotiations with the EU.
Uh, people think he's done then, then he comes back, he becomes leader. It doesn't only become back, come back as leader, but he wins this massive mandate, uh, in, uh, in 2019. Uh, I think one of the biggest, [00:33:00] uh, majorities that a, uh, that the Tories have won in, in its history. Uh, Is it foolish to count him out? I think he certainly wants people to think he might come back.
Um, his last words in Parliament were, you know, uh, not, not, not classic parliamentary rhetoric, but were like, hasta la vista, baby. Obvious kind of Terminator reference, you know, I'll be back. Um, when one of his closest political allies, they had this final cabinet, they presented him with various gifts, you know, he said, um, to mark the end of your current stint as prime minister.
That was the kind of the gag. Um, so I think he certainly wants people to think he might come back. I think politically, it's quite different, difficult as lightning doesn't strike twice. And I also think that ultimately what did for him was that he'd lost the confidence of his parliamentary party. And I think he will struggle to get that back.
What I think he will be is, [00:34:00] a hugely influential voice on the right of British politics. Yeah. Uh, he is going to write his, his autobiography will be out in record time. He's going to be writing his newspaper columns. He's going to be making TV documentaries. Yeah. He is going to have a big influence and it's, he is, I think whoever succeeds him, you know, uh, I, I think they, they will come the day on which Boris Johnson's newspaper column appears will be a day when they wake up in the morning thinking.
Um, and he is, you know, I don't think he is going to disappear from British public life. I think he is going to be a big figure. And I think that there is undoubtedly a part of a Tory base that is like, why did they get rid of the guy, the guy won this big majority, like, and, you know, why didn't you know, he'd earned the right to continue on to the next election.
And I mean, there are certainly some of his supporters who think like, you know, [00:35:00] look, in the same way that Margaret Thatcher became the great lost cause of Tory politics. You know, why was she ever removed from office? That he will become that kind of figure. Although with Thatcher, to your earlier point, there was a real ideological cause at the core of her support and her movement.
And that was a connective tissue she had with the base of the party, and it's not clear that Johnson has that. Yeah, I mean, what he does have, I agree with you, but he doesn't have that. ideological connection. He probably in some ways has a greater kind of charisma connection. And he will also, I think, regard himself as the kind of guardian of Brexit.
Okay. And that that Brexit base doesn't overlap directly with the Tory base, but there's a lot of similarity. And so if he starts saying, my successor has gone soft on Brexit. Then, yeah, that will cause trouble for his successor. Before, before we move off of [00:36:00] Boris, just, um, there's a lot of comparisons made in the punditry class here in the U.
S. Uh, to the U. S. and under Trump, and, and, uh, a lot of analysts pointing out, well, look at the way these Tory cabinet members brought down their prime minister. Where was the courage of cabinet members within the U. S. government to bring down And I, I think people don't fully understand that if you're a cabinet member and you resign from, uh, submit your letter of resignation to press the United States.
The president gets to fill your job with, he nominates someone else, he's still his president, uh, the government keeps functioning, the cabinet keeps functioning. So, these cabinet members, Richie, Richie Sunak in particular, resigned to bring down Boris because they could bring down Boris. The cabinet member here can resign, but not necessarily bring down the president.
Could you just explain how, just, it's a process point, but I just, I think it's important for listeners to understand the difference in the systems. It's, I mean, we could debate. [00:37:00] about comparisons of courage. But in this particular case, there is a process for a cabinet member resigning and bringing down the government.
Yeah. Although I don't think it was obvious that they were going to bring down the government. When they first the first people started resigning. I don't I don't think it was obvious at that point the government was gonna fall. What happened was it was then a kind of domino effect that people kept coming.
I mean, by the end of it, there were 50 odd ministers had resigned. And it basically got to the point where it would be impossible, to your point, to staff the government. Because you have to staff the government from within the parliamentary party. And it, there were just not enough people to fill all of those slots.
And people, I mean, to give you a sense of it, uh, on the day that he resigned, I remember waking up, checking, checking, a couple of people had resigned, you know, in this age of 24 7 media. I emailed my colleagues on death say I'll do the first two resignations And then basically before I'd filed it was like [00:38:00] I'll do the first four resignations because they just kept coming and coming and coming and coming and coming and I Think there was a kind of sense by the end that it could not continue And I think he was quite, he was undoubtedly reluctant to go and he looked to see, you know, and then ultimately it became clear that he just could not staff a government if he stayed and that's why he decided to resign.
Okay, and finally, we haven't talked at all about Keir Starmer, the leader of the Labour Party. Can you just, uh, tell us a little bit about Keir Starmer, where he's positioning himself? Uh, for a, for a potential future general election against the Tories. So, there are two ways that a leadership contest can work in British politics, I think, for the other party.
One is that it gets so much attention, it becomes impossible for the other party to get noticed, and [00:39:00] they suffer from it. The other is that there are sufficient divisions exposed within the governing party that the opposition benefits by default. At the moment, it looks like this contest is going to be the latter rather than the former, because you're seeing really big ideological divides.
between the two candidates, right? So, you've got Rishi Sunak saying that, you know, it's a fairy tale to think that you can just cut taxes now and everything will be great. And you've got Liz Truss saying, taxes are way too high, and we're gonna have a recession unless we cut taxes. And, you know, there's an old maxim in British politics that oppositions don't win elections, governments lose them.
And at the moment, the Tories look in danger of going down that path. But, problem for Starmer and the risks for him is that Labour was set up in all their positioning very much in opposition to Boris Johnson on a kind of personal level. And Boris Johnson so dominated UK politics that [00:40:00] whoever succeeds him, it will feel like a new government.
Like, remember that when John Major succeeded Margaret Thatcher, he'd been her Chancellor and her Foreign Secretary, but it still felt like a totally new and different government because Thatcher was this massive personality. Anyone else in charge just felt very different. And so the risk I think for Sama is that, you know, he is not a kind of Tony Blair style figure.
He has not made a massive connection with the public. He has not taken a decisive and overwhelming lead in the polls yet. And so he could be vulnerable if a new leader can, you know, sort the Tories out, you know, he could find he, he could find that the Tories are come back, but there is also a danger for the Tories.
But, you know, this is their third change of leader in six years. And, you know, every time you change a leader, you inject a little bit of Poison into the party's bloodstream and the danger is that the Tories are just getting quite close to kind of septic shock And in terms of how he would govern where [00:41:00] where would you put him and his governing agenda center left hard left?
What what how the party's transformed since Corbyn Jeremy Corbyn? Lost the last election. Uh He's he has moved the party back to the center from the Corbyn era Um, you know, he, he ran essentially in that leadership contest saying that he essentially offered kind of Corbynism without Corbyn, right? He was going to keep the policies, but you know, he wouldn't be Jeremy Corbyn.
He wouldn't have the baggage and he wouldn't have some of the kind of foreign policy issues on NATO, nuclear weapons, all of that stuff. As leader, he has, he has tried to drag Labour to the centre. I think in ideological terms, Starmer is, uh, definitely to the left of Tony Blair. Um, and it, I think he would govern as a fairly kind of classic social Democrat government.
I think the most likely result of the next election at the moment, depending on what happens in the Tory leadership race, would probably be, but, [00:42:00] uh, there might be an anti Tory majority in Parliament, so he might have to govern kind of in conjunction with the Liberal Democrats and the Greens. Um, but I think on Starmer, you know, he has not yet sealed the deal with the public.
And we, he is also trying to keep his powder as dry as possible on, on policy. He is essentially running a small target strategy, which is, you know, if I don't give the Tories anything to shoot at, they can't shoot at it. Last question. Uh, something that I'm struck that has not gotten much attention, I think.
Over certainly in the U. S. And I think as well also in the U. K. Is that the if you look at the four finalists for the leadership of the Tory party, one of them was going to be prime minister. It was an extraordinarily diverse group of candidates that we have not seen in Tory politics for a long time. Uh, you can go back, I guess, to Thatcher.
You could go back, or May, Thatcher, [00:43:00] Disraeli, in terms of if you think about ethnic diversity, gender, so can you, can you, gender diversity, can you talk a little bit about that? So, I think there are two things going on. Uh, one is that, um, David Cameron, when he was leader, He kind of changed the way the Tories selected their candidates to put more of an emphasis on getting more women selected and more ethnic minorities selected.
Then I mean the second thing that is happening is that in Britain lots of, uh, recent immigrants have you know, embrace what you could call the kind of vigorous virtues of factorism, you know, uh, hard work, entrepreneurialism, uh, patriotism, public service. So, you know, all of those things have come together and I think that the, the, the Tory party is, um, you know, now very, very competitive with Labour.
In terms of a Hindu and Sikh [00:44:00] vote and the Black African vote. Um, and you know, also, you know, for example, if you look at the Jewish vote, right, historically very Labour. Now, much, much more split, uh, between the main parties. And so I think the Tories are, the Tories are, uh, very, very comfortable with, you know, diversity.
I think there is a, I think there is a quite a good argument that Britain is the most successful multi racial democracy. Uh, in the world right now. And can you just, those four finalists, just describe, you know, you know, who, what each, who each one was in terms of that. So, Kemi Badnok had been born in Britain, then she'd moved back to Nigeria where her family were from, and then she returned to the UK at 16 to do, to finish off her education, and uh, she then stayed in the UK.
Um, she became a Tory politician, she bat leave in the referendum, [00:45:00] and she is the standout star of this contest, in that she essentially made a kind of first principles argument for conservatism during the contest, and the base, which I think has been kind of disconcerted by some of the kind of ideological flexibility and fluidity of recent years.
Absolutely loved it. She is, you know, she's very straight talking. She's, uh, very hot on, you know, uh, she's very opposed to what we, you know, hear what we call kind of wokery. Um, and the members love her. And, you know, the, the, the polling during the race showed that from kind of relatively low recognition, she was beating absolutely everyone by a country mile.
Uh, the other final, the other person who didn't make it from the final four is Penny Mordant. She And she hit a kind of sweet spot, which is for people who wanted a break from the Johnson cabinet, she'd never served in it, but she had served in Theresa [00:46:00] May's cabinet as aid secretary and then briefly as defense secretary.
So she was able to say, look, I've got cabinet experience. But not in this cabinet and that a lot of party members liked and I think that her Appeal was she sits for Portsmouth, which is a naval seat in the south of England, which has seen better days And she you know first in our family to go to university military background yeah, she appealed to a kind of Tory sense of This is kind of blue collar conservatism.
Yep. And then, and then Liz Trust we talked about and, and Rishi Sunak is, his family's from India. Yeah, by East Africa. So that's a kind of, you know, part of that, uh, those Indians who went to East Africa, you know, because of British rule in East Africa, and then came to the UK. And again, you know, These are, you know, his dad was a GP doctor here, his mom was a [00:47:00] pharmacist, you know, kind of classic, um, uh, success story of, of immigrants.
And, you know, there were, there were, you know, they weren't, you know, the other people in the race was Sajid Javid, you know, whose, whose family came to UK from Pakistan, you know, this is, the Tories are. Very, have become very successful at creating a kind of diverse leadership group, but which isn't defined by its kind of ethnicity.
This is not a kind of, um, kind of quota system. This is very much like just the kind of, the, the Tories have found a way as a party of a center right to, to appeal. And I think they are, they have, they have a kind of, they have managed to create a kind of, A British patriotism, which is, you know, very much about values and emotional connection rather than any kind of blood and soil connotations.
That is, uh, [00:48:00] very helpful. Uh, I think we're experiencing, uh, something similar in U. K., in U. S. politics on the right here. Uh, it's a conversation for another day. It's not immediate, but I think it's, um, It's very fluid and, um, so watching what's happening, uh, on, on your side of the pond is very encouraging.
James, as always, uh, thank you. You've been very generous with your time. Pleasure to dashed over here. Did you dash over from Parliament? Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. I was just over that. I mean, our listeners can't, I can see him. He came like running in from Harleman. And, and by the way, that's not easy to do these days because unlike usual, unlike usual times where it's raining, it's actually disgustingly hot and you're running in it.
We have had our hottest day. We are not used to this level of heat here. It's kind of, you know, uh, and, you know, remember this is London. So most places don't have air conditioning. Right. Right. So, uh, anyways, I will actually be, uh, uh, [00:49:00] suffering, uh, the, the London heat at some point this summer. So I'll be sure to track you down when I do until then, James, thanks again, as always, for taking the time.
See you soon, Dan. Thanks so much. All right. That's our show for today. To keep up with James Forsyth, you can follow him on Twitter at JamesForsyth. J G Forsyth. That's J G F O R S Y T H. You can also find his work and his reporting at the Spectator, spectator. co. uk. Highly recommend you subscribe. Call Me Back is produced by Alon Benatar.
Until next time, I'm your host, Dan Ceno.