The Biggest Bellyachers in Politics

The biggest moaners in politics are members of the Conservative Party. It doesn't matter what it is, whether it's a Eurovision entrant who once said uncomplimentary things about their government, students objecting to bigots using their campuses to peddle hate, or the BBC breaking with tradition and running a factual support about how X leading politician has been enriched by a coincidental by-product of a policy, a senior backbencher, a minister, or a national newspaper will fulminate and cast the Tory juggernaut as the poor little victim of bullying. For tetchyness and thin-skinned overreactions, the most rigid of Trotskyist groups have nothing on the Tories. This in mind, the weekend's conference of the Conservative Democratic Organisation was always going to be a whinge fest of the highest order.

Who are the CDO? Are they an organisation founded to address the party's yawning democracy gap? Don't be silly. Readers familiar with the utterly fascinating topic of the Conservative Party's constitution will know that meaningful power resides in the party leader. Members are "consulted" about policy at their occasional forums, but they have no effective determination over the party's political direction. I suppose in this sense the Tories are more honest than the Labour Party, which takes motions at conference but its resolutions are routinely ignored by the party leadership. Apart from this Tory members get to vote in the leadership contests, vote in their local Association officers and, lastly, select their candidates at election time. The democracy the CDO is "campaigning" for, according to its statement of aims, is the election of more party officers and the protection of Associations' rights to select their MP, and deselect them if necessary. Note the idea members should steer the party politically is not even entertained.

I use the term "campaigning" loosely because internal reform is but a fig leaf. The CDO is basically the Boris Johnson fan club, draped in the finery of principled party democracy. The CDO argues that the election of Rishi Sunak was an anti-democratic outrage, which is true enough. But, strangely, their concerns for the niceties of democracy were nowhere to be seen when Johnson was flouting every constitutional norm going, nor when he tabled the legislation that introduced compulsory voter ID and the constituency boundary gerrymanders. Another uncanny coincidence: the CDO's leading figures are all noted Johnson cronies. The chair, Peter Cruddas, was given a peerage after donating £3m to the Tories over many years. Coincidentally, that was upped by a further half million once he received his ermine. Also on board are the gruesome twosome of Jacob Rees-Mogg and Nadine Dorries, and former Home Secretary Priti Patel. You might recall she made a pointed show of refusing to resign when the knives finally came out for Johnson, and retired from the cabinet just before Liz Truss paid Downing Street her flying visit. The reason for their conference being a whinge-fest then isn't hard to fathom: it's led by people who have been out of sorts since Johnson's heave-ho. The CDO is nothing but an organised grievance.

Consider Patel's speech. No more coyness and shilly-shallying. The electoral drubbing of the previous week was blamed on "centrists". I.e. Sunak. Things would have been so much different had they spent more time "with us", and a thousand councillors would have been spared the consequences of "bad decisions" at Westminster. Unnamed "colleagues" also get it in the neck for doing "a better job at damaging our party than the opposition, left wing campaign groups, civil service blob, and our enemies in the media combined." The drone and moan carried on with Cruddas's address. He attacked Sunak for moving the Tories in the direction of "a centre-left or social democratic party". Only someone whose view of social life is obscured by mountains of money could believe such rubbish. He attacked Tory MPs who had gone behind Johnson's back and colluded with each other in "secret meetings", which is something his hero definitely never did under any of his predecessors. Cruddas also warned that Labour were on course to win an election and would lock the Tories out of power "forever". Their underhanded means of doing involves enfranchising 16 and 17 year-olds, reversing voter ID, and introducing proportional representation.

To think some people spent good money travelling from one end of the country to the other to bathe in a day of bloviating and complaining. But among the grumbles against briefcase Toryism, a nugget of interest. Despite heaping praise on her former boss, Patel came to bury him with platitudes. Asked about the chances of a Johnson comeback, she said "I don't think that's going to do us the world of good at all." Indeed not as, by the time of his removal, he had become toxic and the Tories languished between 11 and 14 points behind in nearly all the polls. That at least suggests Patel has a foot in political realities, unlike some drawn behind the Johnson train. Fortunately for her, this ruling out of a return hasn't provoked a reaction from the CDO faithful. Perhaps some of them are cottoning on to their idol being yesterday's man. But, as it happens, there is someone with a demonstrable track record of Johnson loyalty and a policy pedigree of right wing cruelty that tickles the Tory underbelly. The Tories like a good whinge, as Cruddas and Patel remind us, but in this instance their performative snowflakery has a purpose: to make certain their take over of the Tory party after the coming, inevitable defeat.

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