In a church hall in Westminster, the first meeting of a breakaway group of Conservative MPs took place. Chaos Anonymous. Word had got round and one by one the MPs shuffled in – helping themselves to coffee and biscuits from the greeters – trying not to catch one another’s eye. Come 10am, there were at least 20 derelict Tories in the room. Shame hung heavy in the air. The first sign of something approaching self-awareness.
“My name’s Rish! and I’m an addict.’
“Hi Rish!.”
“I’d like to welcome everyone to this meeting of CA,” Rish! continued. “For those of you who are new here, which seems to be most of you, I would like to remind you that this is an anonymous programme. What you say here, what you see here, let it stay here. Try not to be judgmental. Listen for the similarities, not the differences. Just for today, concentrate on Step One. We came to admit that we were powerless over our addiction to chaos and that our lives had become unmanageable.”
There was an awkward silence.
“OK,” said Rish!. “I’ll share first. I feel desperate. I never wanted to do this Rwanda scheme in the first place. I always knew it was a shit idea that was never going to work. I should have stopped it when I had the chance. I could have ditched it on my first day in office. I need never have made that halfwit Suella home secretary. But now I’m stuck with it. I feel desperate. At rock bottom. I just can’t stop myself from self-destructing.”
“Thanks for sharing, Rish!” everyone said.
“My name’s Jimmy D and I’m an addict,” said James C. “I can identify with everything that Rish! says. I also thought the Rwanda plan was completely batshit crazy. That was fine while I was foreign secretary, but now I’m expected to stand up and defend it. My life is in ruins. No one believes a word I say any more. People laugh at me in the streets.”
“Thanks for sharing, Jimmy D,” said Rish!. “If it’s any consolation I don’t think anyone ever did believe you.”
“My name’s Lord Big Dave and I’m an addict,” said Lord Big Dave. “I don’t really know why I’m here. I actually think I’m a relatively high functioning politician but people keep telling me that I’m just glib, greedy and totally superficial. That I am responsible for fucking up the country by not paying attention during the Brexit referendum.”
“Believe them, Lord Big Dave,” the group replied in harmony.
“My name’s Bill C and I’m an addict. I hate all Germans …”
“Thanks Bill. We’ve only got an hour,”
“My name’s Mike T and I’m an addict,” said Mike T, hesitantly. “I thought I was just fine. Then I went on the Today programme and Sky this morning and my life fell apart. I too know that the Rwanda plan isn’t going to work but I’m going to stand up in parliament and make a total idiot of myself by saying that breaking foreign law is what makes Britain great …”
“Do you mean international law?” asked Jimmy D. Unusually, he had been paying attention when someone else was talking.
“There’s no difference.”
“Er … Thanks Mike T. Keep coming back, it works if you work it.”
“OK,” said Rish! “We’ve now reached that point where we make time for newcomers or those who find it difficult to share.”
“My name’s Lee A,” said Lee A, beginning to sob loudly. “Tell you the truth, I’m all over the place. A few years ago I was campaigning for Jeremy Corbyn and now I’m a Tory. At least I was this morning. Thing is, once I see a reporter, I just can’t help myself. I just say the first thing that comes into my head. Yesterday, I managed to vote against the Rwanda bill because it won’t work and offered my 100% support by resigning. Now I’m going to vote for it because I know it will not work.”
“I think you may need more help that we can offer, Lee,” said Jeremy H. “But it’s good to see so many people here. We all share the same intent. The intent to destroy the Tory party by being the worst versions of ourselves. Same time next week?”
Onwards and sideways. There was a brief interlude of Tory unity during prime minister’s questions. Every Conservative MP had kept their promise not to ask Sunak any difficult questions. Too busy digesting the news that Paul Kagame, the Rwandan president, had more or less decided that the UK was too corrupt and incompetent for his dictatorship to do business with us. He was bored with the whole thing and would happily return the money. Or some of it. Or none of it. What was £400m anyway?
So it was left to Keir Starmer to repeatedly press Rish! on the Rwanda plan. It was all pointless, wasn’t it? Performative politics that didn’t even perform. And where were the 4200 people he wanted to deport. He appeared to have lost them. Sunak could only bluster. He hadn’t lost them. He had just hidden them. They would reappear soon. God, Sunak must hate Wednesdays.
Then we were back to the second day of the committee stage of the Rwanda bill. Groundhog Day. The same people making the same arguments. Robert Jenrick looking increasingly isolated as he bumbled on about Britain’s inalienable right to make laws for the entire world. He talked of trains running out of tracks, roads running out of … road. We had pulled the pin out of the grenade but were too frightened to throw it. So he blew himself up instead. Honest Bob beetled off to nurse his wounds. If he is the future of the Tory party then its future is measured in months.
Labour’s Stephen Kinnock also reprised his speech from Tuesday. This was a distraction that got out of hand. Something designed to Save Boris during the Partygate scandal that Sunak made the mistake of taking seriously. Now he was planning to co-opt 150 judges and bring the legal system to its knees. We wanted to join Russia and Belarus. Even Rwanda was feeling queasy.
Then came a long lecture from the former attorney general Jeremy Wright on the obligations of international law. It turned out we could not decide it by ourselves. Nor could we decide if Rwanda had met its obligations. Who knew? Even your average five-year-old has enough awareness to know that reality cannot be whatever you want it to be.
This didn’t stop Suella Braverman. She was almost in tears as she relived her profound grief at a plane full of refugees being grounded by lawyers minutes before it was about to take off for Rwanda. Her life was in tatters. She had never met a refugee she didn’t want to deport. Never found a law she didn’t want to break. Her speech was astonishingly poor. Badly argued. Intellectually incoherent. Luckily there was almost no one there to hear it.
It all felt a bit tired. Wilted. This was going nowhere. The rebellion looked set to fizzle out. The bill would pass but no one would win. Rish! was hopelessly weakened. The Rwanda plan wouldn’t work. Because it had never been designed to. We were just set for more chaos. More self-destruction. Next week’s meeting of CA should be even better attended.
