AceNewsDesk – If, as the opinion polls suggest, Rishi Sunak leads the Conservatives to a shattering defeat, its magnitude increased by Nigel Farage’s success as the leader of Reform UK in attracting Tory votes, Johnson will step forward as the one person who can save the party from the opportunistic takeover bid which Farage will then launch
@acenewsservices
Ace Press News From Cutting Room Floor: Published: Jun.21: 2024: Conservative Home By Andrew GimsonJune 16, 2024: TELEGRAM Ace Daily News Link https://t.me/YouMeUs2
@acenewsservices
As Johnson’s biographer, I have to say it would be out of character for him not to do this. Something of the sort happened in 2019, when Farage, at the head of another shell company, the Brexit Party, triumphed in the European elections and precipitated the fall of Theresa May.
Johnson stepped forward as the one man who could save the Conservative Party. He beat off stiff competition from (in order of elimination) Rory Stewart, Sajid Javid, Michael Gove and Jeremy Hunt, in November 2019 forced Farage to stand down Brexit Party candidates in the 317 seats already held by the Conservatives, and in December led the party to its greatest general election victory since 1987.
He did this as an insurgent, a candidate for whom people could vote in order to express their discontent with the state of things, and in particular with May’s failure to get Brexit done.
One of the difficulties experienced by Sunak in this election is that he has no affinity with discontented voters. Nor did May.
Nor indeed does Sir Keir Starmer. Like Sunak, he strives to connect with the wider public by emphasising the ordinariness of his background, and as with Sunak this does not work, for he has plainly ascended, by ability, hard work and good fortune, from the ranks of the respectable working or middle class into the ranks of the respectable ruling class.
Respectability is a valuable quality. We shall perhaps look back on this period and think how fortunate we were to have such respectable leaders, who could be counted upon to obey the rules and strive to do the decent thing.
But respectability also creates a barrier. It is hard for voters who find life a struggle, know they have failed in various ways and yearn to register a protest, to feel satisfied by voting for either Sunak or Starmer.
At the start of this election, I went for ConHome to Hartlepool, where in the by-election in May 2021 the Conservatives under Johnson won an astonishing victory, taking the seat off Labour by the biggest swing to an incumbent party since the war. As a woman in the Ward Jackson pub explained:
“When it was Boris we changed over to Conservative and now we’re back to Labour.
“I worry about America having two dopey candidates, but I’m not sure we’re doing much better.
“I think if Boris was still in I’d vote for Boris, obviously. He was dopey but he was our dopey.”
Just over three years ago, voters in Hartlepool expressed their rebelliousness by voting Conservative, for they recognised in Johnson a kindred spirit.
He made people from a Labour background feel good about voting Conservative: a gift not possessed by his successors as Tory leader.
Two days ago, Sir Simon Clarke, Paul Bristow, Nick Fletcher, Tom Hunt, Jane Stevenson and Brendan Clarke-Smith published on X endorsements videoed for them with his usual gusto by Johnson.
These MPs are not fashionable. Their seats are scattered across provincial England: Middlesbrough South, Peterborough, Doncaster East, Ipswich, Wolverhampton North East, Bassetlaw.
Johnson was reminding us he has a record of reaching voters in neglected towns who have felt taken for granted by both main parties for generations. In the Peterborough video he began:
“Hi folks, Boris Johnson here, just saying what a wonderful local MP Paul Bristow has been in Peterborough. I think I launched my leadership campaign with Paul years ago and I’ve seen up close what a great job he’s done for his constituents.”
In the Middlesbrough video he said Clarke has been:
“such a crucial part of the whole levelling up agenda in Teesside, the Freeport, bringing back steel works to the area, helping to save the airport. It’s vital that we keep Simon Clarke there to stop Ben Houchen being simply surrounded by Labour MPs…
“Simon has been heroic in helping to get me elected, to get us all elected in 2019, in one of the biggest majorities our party has seen for a very long time.”
In the leadership race of 2019, Johnson’s many critics were unable to find and unite round a stop Johnson candidate with the necessary abilities as a campaigner to defeat him, and to hold out the prospect of defeating Farage.
They assumed, wrongly, that his leadership campaign would be a mess. It turned out to be carefully prepared, for he had learned from the debacle of his leadership bid in 2016 that in such a contest chaos will not do.
The more vehemently his critics denounced Johnson for being morally disreputable, the more people who had felt the scorn of the virtuous decided he was their man.
Five years later, it is not impossible the same dynamic will set in: denunciation of Johnson, and the mistaken assumption that he has made no preparations, accompanied by inability to unite round a candidate who can beat him and then rout the preposterous Farage.
If Starmer becomes Prime Minister, it is possible he will grow into the job, and find the tone of voice needed to do it well. But as Charles Moore noted of Starmer in The Spectator after the leaders’ debate on 4th June:
“his persistent fault is his moralism. His favourite word about his opponent was ‘shocking’. That is prissy maiden-auntism, not leadership.”
Johnson offers relief from maiden-auntism. He stands in a line of Tory Democrats who have been able at crucial moments to frame an appeal which shocks the prissy but speaks to the wider public. No wonder he is thinking of standing again.
At Sterling Publishing & Media Service Agency, we value transparency and accountability. We want to inform you that we are not responsible for any external content, links, or posts. Nonetheless, we are dedicated to providing exceptional services and sincerely appreciate your support. Thank you.
@acenewsservices
