Northern Tories are less of a threat to Boris Johnson than they seem

A new group of rebellious MPs has been set up to represent the interests of the seats that changed hands at the last election, writes John Rentoul

Boris Johnson, building back better (AFP/Getty)

My new favourite tale from the doorstep comes from an anonymous northern Conservative MP who asked constituents what they thought Boris Johnson’s promise of “levelling up” meant. One said: “Do you mean the potholes?” 

This just goes to show how Westminster politics, with its neat slogans designed to move blocs of voters around the chessboard, sometimes comes a cropper. Conservative MPs are keen to hold Boris Johnson to his promise to boost the northern economy in order to hold on to their “red wall” seats – while some of their voters are left wondering what they are talking about. 

This week’s development was the letter to the prime minister from the Northern Research Group of Tory MPs, complaining that “the cost of Covid could be paid for by the downgrading of the levelling-up agenda, and northern constituencies like ours will be left behind”. They fear that coronavirus restrictions are “disproportionately” affecting the north and so they want to put pressure on the government to deliver for their constituents. 

Their language may be obscure, but their methods are familiar to anyone who has observed parliamentary pressure-group politics. The Northern Research Group (NRG) has copied the European Research Group (ERG), one of the more successful factions of Tory MPs. It has similar qualities: a clear sense of what it is for, and a membership large enough to wipe out the government’s majority.  

This being the Tory party, it also presents itself as a venture of true loyalists, intent only on helping the prime minister to do what he wants to do anyway. The NRG is led by Jake Berry, MP for Rossendale and Darwen in Lancashire, a former ally of Johnson’s and a former minister for the “Northern Powerhouse”. He said Johnson wanted him to set up the group: “I think his exact words were, ‘I order you to go out and set this group up.’”

Berry’s letter was signed by 41 Tory MPs, a quantity known in politics as “a majority”. (If the government has a majority of 80, it takes 41 MPs to vote against the government to defeat it; strictly, Johnson has a working majority of 85, but you get the idea.) 

The NRG also has an advantage over the ERG, in that it is easier for it to make common cause with the opposition parties. Labour never had much in common with Steve Baker or Iain Duncan Smith on the question of Europe, but Labour MPs are just as keen as Jake Berry to see public money diverted to the north of England, and just as likely to worry that tier 3 coronavirus restrictions discriminate in favour of the south. 

So when the NRG letter was reported as a “threat” to Johnson, this was an accurate statement of parliamentary arithmetic. If Berry and his colleagues can find an issue on which to combine with the opposition, they could defeat the prime minister. In just this week, however, that has turned out to be a big “if”. Since the publication of their letter demanding a “roadmap down the tiering system” (they really are addicted to buzz phrases), the virus numbers have continued to go in the wrong direction, and all the signs on the map are pointing upwards, towards further restrictions across the country.

In the longer term, the NRG faces a daunting challenge. What would persuade first-time Tory voters in northern seats that the government had delivered, as Robert Largan, Tory MP for High Peak in Derbyshire, put it, “real change for parts of the country that were taken for granted by Labour for decades”? It won’t be slogans about “rebalancing the economy” or token gestures such as moving a few civil servants to northern campuses. 

The same MP who reported their constituent’s puzzlement about “levelling up” told Paul Waugh of Huffington Post that voters didn’t understand what “Build Back Better” meant either. This MP’s conclusion was: “They need to find the right words for it.” 

At the next election, the leverage of “get Brexit done” won’t be available to northern Tories. All they have between then and now is a shouting match against Andy Burnham about who can claim to have made most noise on behalf of “the north”. A match the Tories are likely to lose, because they are in government and will be blamed for a coronavirus recession that is bound to hit the north harder than the south.