If the knives are out for Boris Johnson, the scalpels are out for Britain’s already shredded public realm. It would be an error to presume that Tory MPs have had a sudden revelation about the grade-A charlatan they voluntarily installed in No 10. After all, he was previously sacked twice for lying, conspired to beat up a journalist and whipped up Islamophobic bigotry by comparing veiled Muslim women to bank robbers. It is true that the parliamentary Conservative party has been severely bruised by a head-on collision with public opinion: an electorate that has endured the most severe sacrifices since the second world war did not take kindly to its rulers partying until they vomited, in defiance of their own rules. What really rankles with Tory parliamentarians offers a clue as to the likely political direction of our government and, with it, the nation: a belief that Johnson is insufficiently committed to the Thatcherite cause of what is euphemistically described as “rolling back the state” – that is, slash-and-burn cuts to the public sector.
Johnson is no anti-austerity crusader, though he has sought to pretend otherwise. During the last general election campaign, he claimed to have told Conservative colleagues back in 2010 that “austerity was just not the right way forward for the UK”. The Conservatives consummated their love affair with “red wall” voters through strategically targeted spending promises, specifically on the NHS, education and policing. As one would expect from a man with as much loyalty to the truth as his partners, these commitments were not all they seemed: the promise to build 40 hospitals, for example, turned out to be mostly rebuilding or consolidating existing projects.
While the meanness of George Osborne’s welfare-state-bashing rhetoric – such as denouncing claimants for “sleeping off a life on benefits” – has not been replicated, the slashing of the universal credit uplift during a cost of living crisis shows that the underlying ideological cruelty remains. Indeed, Thatcherism pounds through the veins of Johnson’s chancellor, Rishi Sunak, who included £17bn of hidden spending cuts in the mini-budget back in March.
But like all political shapeshifters, Johnson is nothing but inconsistent. His commitment to raise £12bn a year for the NHS and social care by hiking national insurance profoundly disturbed many Tory MPs, as did the increase in corporation tax. They did not sign up to the true-blue cause to oversee the highest overall tax burden since the 1950s, even if it remains lower than most other western nations. Johnson’s own political instincts speak to splashing cash on big projects, however vain and useless – think of his doomed Garden Bridge as London mayor, in which £53m was frittered away, or his ludicrous fantasy to build a bridge across the Irish Sea.
What Tory MPs really crave is a leader who uses the prime ministerial bully pulpit to wage an ideological war against the state. With Osborne and David Cameron, Tory MPs got the state-shredding, but resented the perceived social liberalism, however illusory that was. With Johnson, they have social conservatism in the form of gruesome culture wars – from migrant-bashing and restoring imperial measurements to stigmatising trans women – but without a full-blooded onslaught on the public sector.
If Jeremy Hunt – who has wielded the knife on the man who routed him in the last Tory leadership race – succeeds Johnson, the culture war zeal is likely to subside, with the caveat that this is a man who personally advocates halving the abortion time limit. Hunt is far more in the traditional mould of hacking chunks off the British state. The same goes for the unsubtle Margaret Thatcher tribute act that is Liz Truss, still a favourite among the Tory grassroots. Hunt lauded Cameron and Osborne for political “genius” in convincing the public to acquiesce to austerity, and has been rightly condemned by trade unions for both ignoring and exacerbating NHS staff shortages when he was health secretary. Truss, meanwhile, is probably the most ideologically committed Tory cabinet minister, who co-wrote the 2012 book Britannia Unchained, a blueprint for casting employment protections and a “bloated state” on to a bonfire.
When Johnson finally falls, expect any would-be successor to appeal to disillusioned Tory members by castigating their government’s failure to bash the state. Like Johnson before them, they will masquerade as an entirely new government representing change: unfortunately this means injecting a renewed poison dose of austerity into British society. In theory, this offers an opportunity for Labour. The abject failure of Labour after the 2008 crash to rebut deceitful Tory claims of overspending – the then-opposition backed Gordon Brown’s spending, pound-for-pound – allowed the Conservatives and their media allies to build a consensus around slash-and-burn cuts.
The electorate has not been frightened into acquiescing to a new battery of cuts, which are – above all else – responsible for the longest squeeze in wages since the early 19th century. Labour could have a convincing story to tell about how the decimation of the public sector left Britain woefully unprepared for the pandemic. But Labour’s instincts are now back to where they were before 2015: they are likely to respond to Tory cuts by echoing frets about the deficit and debt, shifting political debate entirely on the terms of the government. This would be a grave error. From surging poverty to stagnating living standards to creaking public services, the need for genuine investment – not the smoke and mirrors offered by Johnson – could hardly be more compelling.
So adopt the brace position, and keep the champagne on ice. Johnson’s malign rule deserves an undignified end. But many of us celebrated the fall of Theresa May, disregarding the iron rule of British politics: however bad you think things are now, they could always get worse.
Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist
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