Sensitivity warning: references to sexual assault
This week saw the launch of yet another new group within the Conservative Party, the Popular Conservatives, jauntily shortened to PopCons (which, let’s face it, as the current polls stand is nothing less than comedy gold). I have a confession to make. Since their launch this week at the Emmanuel Centre – which, if anyone was wondering, is a mere hop and a skip from Tufton Street in SW1 – I’ve experienced a bit of an EJ Carroll moment.
PopCons pop the balloon
EJ Caroll was raped by Donald Trump in 1996 and she hadn’t seen him since. She feared facing him in court. He represents ultimate power and influence backed up by an army of grassroots supporters ready to back him. However, finding herself so physically close to Trump during her court appearance, Carroll found it easy to look him in the eyes. She just saw him for what he was. Nothing. She realised that people shouldn’t be afraid of him.
To Carroll, Trump looked powerless and weak. To me the right of the Tory party, embodied by whichever new tribe they decided upon this week, came across as nothing. Empty handed in terms of meaningful contribution to political dialogue and empty headed in their arguments. Their self-delusion is not a new phenomenon, it’s just become inarguably evident. Without the respectability of a TV studio or a parliamentary office to legitimise their words, they are paraded naked and left wanting.
For a long time now the deteriorating behaviour of our politicians and the pernicious grip of the transatlantic web of dark money thinktanks on our media and politics, seemed to render helpless any hope of returning to a world in which our established national character was recognisable, and the cool-headed, feet-on-the-ground nature of our national comportment evident. But this week the architects of this decline stepped out into the light of day and spoke their truth in front of us all. They are a ragbag bunch of strange people and they sounded utterly detached from reality.
Liz Truss and her Tufton Street trumpets!
The brainchild of Mark Littlewood, former head of the Institute for Economic Affairs (IEA), the PopCons launch revealed a distinct lack of novelty. Out of the four names initially billed to speak, only two, Liz Truss and Jacob Rees-Mogg, were present.
The audience was a rollcall of angry political old-timers such as Priti Patel, David Frost, Jake Berry and Lee Anderson. David Starkey, who in 2020 bemoaned the fact that there were “so many damn blacks in Africa”, showed his face and of course Nigel Farage popped in, if only to dismiss the group as nothing more than a gathering of Reform wannabees. There were no inspirational new candidates for the leadership, and no new ideas.
Four key speakers were billed to appear. One, Ranil Jayawardena, did the equivalent of dumping them by text and announced on X (formally known as Twitter) that he wouldn’t be there. The other, Simon Clarke, was withdrawn for openly attacking the party leadership. Not a look the PopCons want. Yet.
So Truss and Rees-Mogg took to the stage. The former suggested the British are in reality secret conservatives cowered into silence; except that is for environmentalists, who are secret communists set on destroying life as we know it. The latter, long-term MP, hedgefunder and knight of the realm, railed against the establishment and elites before Anderson made an appearance with his working-class cap-doffing act to the ‘man at the big house’. His contribution was to ask Rees-Mogg if coal was once trees and therefore a sustainable energy source.
A cause without the rebels
Despite the best efforts of certain corners of the British press in recent years, when the proponents of such radicalised politics try to score points, they often end up with an own goal. Twitter can warp perceptions and create echo chambers but when Farage and his ilk attack the RNLI, their donations rocket. When Tufton Street tries to infiltrate the National Trust, their membership steps forward and votes to keep them out. Ideological excess doesn’t go down well in the land of tea and biscuits.
This year is highly important to this version of the right. Their fate lies in the election results in key global constituencies, the most significant being in the United States.
Tuesday’s non-event was surely on the radar of the Heritage Foundation in the US. Like the IEA, Heritage is a right-wing libertarian thinktank and member of the Atlas Network. Truss is a close friend. The Foundation has produced a roadmap for a future Trump presidency called Project 2025 (you’ll have to look this one up, because we’re not linking to it). This project involves the breakdown of the separation of powers to place the judiciary and the civil service under the total control of the executive and to dismantle the FBI.
The Heritage Foundation’s plans for America, and by extension for the wider west, are genuinely concerning. Should Trump win in November the world will inevitably change. The geopolitical axis will be upended in ways we cannot yet specify and Capitol Hill may come to represent a very different force than that which we have always known.
PopCons: more Walmington-on-Sea than Washington DC
But if their foot soldiers in the UK are the PopCons, then over here it’s more Walmington-on-Sea than Washington DC. My faith that there is no silent majority of secret conservatives lurking in the shadows, ready to seize power, has been reinforced by the pitiful offering on display this week.
