Is Boris Johnson losing control of Tory backbenchers?

Pressure is building among Conservative MPs over the Huawei decision and alignment with China – just as it did with the European Research Group, writes Sean O'Grady

Not quite one year into his premiership, a substantial majority and with Brexit ‘done’ (or claimed to be) Johnson is already the subject of rumours and whispers (Reuters)

You might think that the idea of a “China Research Group” is some sort of satirical take on the Tory splits over policy on Huawei and China. Just like the very real European Research Group, you see, the imaginary China Research Group might be expected, according to this soured view of the scene, to have a similarly overinflated opinion of its own virtues and how much it, and indeed Great Britain, can throw its weight around in the world. The CRG would boast its own equivalents of the ERG’s Mark Francois, David Davis and Iain Duncan Smith; and make a lot of noise.

But the CRG is real, and noisy, and its sympathisers (if not actual members) do indeed include Mark Francois, David Davis and Iain Duncan Smith (there is no public definitive list of the CRG’s “members”). Like the ERG, it likes making trouble. In March came the biggest rebellion of the Johnson majority government since it was elected last year, and some 38 Tory MPs defied the whip on a vote about Huawei’s involvement in 5G.

The Venn diagram overlap with the Eurosceptic right is striking. Apart from Francois, Davis and Duncan Smith, you will find other familiar names from past Brexity revolts – including Graham Brady (chair of the backbench 1922 Committee), Andrew Bridgen, Esther McVey, Owen Paterson, John Redwood and Andrew Rosindell. The usual suspects, you might say; but the new wave of Sinosceptics drew support from other, ex-Remain, corners of the parliamentary party, including Damian Green and Tom Tugenhat. Tugenhat is chair of the CRG (as well as the foreign affairs select committee), and Neil O’Brien, first elected an MP in 2019, is secretary of it.

Other members/supporters of the CRG include Andrew Bowie, Dehenna Davison, Laura Trott, Alicia Kearns and Anthony Browne. Tobias Ellwood, chair of the Commons defence committee, is another voice warning about China’s ambitions, and has said he “absolutely” expects “reprisals” from China. These might be disruptive cyberattacks on UK infrastructure. Just what we need right now, you might be tempted to add.

According to Mr O’Brien, the CRG exists because: “The coronavirus crisis has brought forward a debate we needed anyway ... We urgently need fresh thinking about how to protect ourselves from the Chinese government’s aggressive economic policies ... The problem is that the Chinese Communist Party doesn’t really believe in free or fair markets and has an economic strategy based on domination, not fair competition”. Mr Ellwood speaks of Britain “appeasing” China.

You can take a view on whether this is a modern version of the kinds of brave prescient warnings Winston Churchill was making about Hitler’s Germany before 1939; or that they are simply a contemporary recrudescence of traditional and racist Sinophobia, a strange rerun on a geopolitical scale of late Victorian era moral panics about opium dens and slavery in the East End of London.

Leaving aside the wisdom, or otherwise, of the UK launching (or leastways risking) simultaneous trade wars with the European Union and China, what does the emergence of this new Sinoscepticism, a kind of viral mutation of Euroscepticism, tell us about Tory politics?

First, that a fresh Commons majority of 80-plus is no defence against a pressure group this large. In fact it is a bit of a myth that large Commons majorities make party management easier; remember that the largest Tory revolt (pre-Brexit) was in 1986 over Sunday trading reforms. Some 72 Tory MPs defied a three-line whip and overturned Mrs Thatcher’s customary government majority of about 140. By contrast, minority administrations under John Major and James Callaghan lost surprisingly few important bills.

The real problem is that Tory party discipline has disappeared, irrespective of leader or Commons arithmetic. It was Tory backbenchers, as much as Keir Starmer, the media or Premier League footballers, who have forced so many embarrassing U-turns on Johnson in recent months. Furious Tory MPs also very nearly got rid of Dominic Cummings, too – Johnson spent huge amounts of political capital to save his adviser. So parliament has taken back control, if only to that degree.

Second, the emergence of the CRG seems to confirm that the Conservative Party of today is as openly factional as Labour ever was, with new think tanks and groups sprouting all the time. Sometime in the 1980s, under Thatcher, the Tories became more ideological and more prone to a fixation with the politics of “principle”, rather than the Tories’ traditional pragmatism. They are more pragmatic, indeed populist today, but no less keen on a fight with each other.

The experience of the catastrophic events and massive parliamentary defeats since the Brexit referendum in 2016 seems to have inculcated a habit of rebellion and a culture of defiance, plus an even greater taste for intrigue, often focused on leadership plots. Not quite one year into his premiership, a substantial majority and with Brexit “done” (or claimed to be) Johnson is already the subject of rumours and whispers.

Looking back, whereas Harold Macmillan’s government from 1957 to 1963 suffered no government defeats, under leaders since they have since become increasingly routine and serious. Unity has long since ceased to be the Tories’ secret weapon.

The outlook for the government that looked so dominant and confident at the end of January, Brexit formally “done”, seems far less settled. The 20-point lead over Labour has evaporated and the administration has been overwhelmed by crises. The inter-related problems of coronavirus, Brexit and the economy, as well as the coming fight to keep Scotland in the union, will, like the rows about Huawei, put greater pressure on the loyalty – if that is the right word to use – of the parliamentary Conservative Party. A reinvigorated Labour opposition adds a novel source of worry to those in marginal seats. More than ever, with the added dimension of the ex-Red Wall cohort from the de-industrialised north and Midlands, the Conservatives seem to comprise a confederation of partly overlapping, partly interlocking, partly warring interest groups. Populism is not a creed they can unite around, because it is not a creed. They’ve lost their religion, you might say. Even when Brexit and Covid-19 are eventually over, then, the Tory chaos may continue to entertain and appal the nation in equal measure.