London Playbook: Double defeat — Dowden resigns —
Postcard from Rwanda
BY ELENI
COUREA
June 24,
2022 8:21 am
POLITICO
London Playbook
By ELENI
COUREA
DRIVING THE
DAY
WHILE YOU
WERE SLEEPING: Boris Johnson wakes up this morning to the resignation of his
party chairman following a catastrophic night during which the Conservatives
got thrashed in both Wakefield and the hitherto true-blue seat of Tiverton and
Honiton.
Wait, what?
Oliver Dowden, who backed Boris Johnson for leader and has served loyally in
his government since the start, tendered his resignation at 5.35 a.m. — little
over an hour before he was due to appear on the broadcast round — with a terse
letter appearing to rebuke the PM.
Key lines:
“Yesterday’s parliamentary by-elections are the latest in a run of very poor
results for our party,” Dowden wrote. “Our supporters are distressed and
disappointed by recent events, and I share their feelings. We cannot carry on
with business as usual.” He added that “someone must take responsibility” and
that quitting was “a deeply personal decision that I have taken alone.” The
implication is that Dowden is taking responsibility where Boris Johnson has failed
to — becoming the first Cabinet minister to quit, at least implicitly, over
Partygate. The story as it develops from the POLITICO team here.
4,000 miles
away: Somewhat prophetically in the early hours of this morning, Sky’s Jon
Craig was musing about the perils of PMs going abroad at times of key electoral
tests. Margaret Thatcher was in Paris when MPs were holding a confidence vote
in her leadership in 1990. On her return to London, she famously vowed to
“fight on” — but it wasn’t to be. For his part, Boris Johnson wakes up in
Kigali, Rwanda, where he had been due to record an early morning broadcast
clip, have tea with Prince Charles mid-morning and then hold a press conference
after lunchtime. But the PM — who’s scheduled to stay abroad until next Friday
— is already under pressure to return to the U.K. early.
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Vultures
circle: The PM’s critics have already seized on Dowden’s resignation. Simon
Hoare tweeted that it was “an honourable letter from an honourable man” and
that Dowden was “not to blame for these results.” Roger Gale said Dowden “has
clearly decided that he can no longer defend the indefensible.”
Fighting
back: A source close to the PM said Johnson was in no rush to replace Dowden
today — nor in any hurry to come back to the U.K. “He’s got a big job to do and
he’s doing it,” they said. “Not opting out of G7 when the world faces an
economic storm nor NATO when there is a war in Europe.”
How did we
get here? Dowden’s dramatic resignation comes after Labour won back Wakefield —
a red wall seat in Yorkshire which it held between 1932 and 2019 — with a 12.7
percentage point swing on a 39 percent turnout. It’s the first Labour
by-election gain from the Tories since 2012 and if the same swing were
replicated at a general election, the party would win a majority. Labour leader
Keir Starmer, who is visiting the constituency this morning, said the result
was “a clear judgement on a Conservative Party that has run out of energy and
ideas.”
… and
chaser: More significantly yet, the Liberal Democrats have taken Tiverton and
Honiton with a staggering 29.9 percent swing from the Tories on a 52 percent
turnout. In a scathing speech directed straight at the PM, winning candidate
Richard Foord said that “every day Boris Johnson clings to office he brings
further shame, chaos and neglect,” adding that he is “unfit to lead,” before
urging him to resign. Foord now sits on a comfortable 6,144 majority. Lib Dem
leader Ed Davey has arrived at the constituency for his victory lap and was due
on the airwaves from 7.05 a.m. He said the result was “a wake-up call for all
those Conservative MPs propping up Boris Johnson.” Davey and Foord will hold a
victory rally and do a walk-about in Tiverton around 11 a.m.
Some hard
facts: It is difficult to overstate how sensational a victory last night was
for the Lib Dems. This is the largest majority to ever be overturned in a
by-election in terms of the raw number of votes (the previous record was Labour
overturning a 23,972 Tory majority in Liverpool Wavertree in 1935). The last
time this seat was represented by a non-Conservative MP was two years before
Queen Victoria ascended to the throne, according to gleeful late-night Lib Dem
number-crunchers. And there are 291 Tory MPs in seats with smaller majorities
than the one just overturned in Tiverton and Honiton, according to pollster Joe
Twyman.
Don’t
forget: This is the third shock by-election defeat for the Tories at the hands
of the Lib Dems during the past 12 months, following Chesham and Amersham
(16,223 majority) last June and North Shropshire (22,949 majority) in December.
How last
night played out: The scale of the Tory defeat had become clear early on by 3
a.m., by which point both Labour and the Lib Dems were all-but calling the
result. Shadow Cabinet Minister Louise Haigh began dropping hints on live
television soon after 1 a.m. that her party was on course for a comfortable win
in Wakefield, while in Tiverton and Honiton the Lib Dems were openly declaring
“an historic victory” by 2.52 a.m. (soon after Ed Davey posted a slightly
cringe tweet saying he was “going to need a bigger hammer” — to smash the blue
wall, that is). At 3.49 a.m. LBC’s Theo Usherwood reported that Helen Hurford,
the Tory candidate in Tiverton and Honiton, had locked herself in the dance
studio at Crediton sports center where the count was taking place and was refusing
to take questions from the press. The final results from both counts were
declared within minutes of each other just after 4 a.m.
Dawning
realizations: Johnson has a huge political challenge on his hands. Dozens of
red wall MPs who saw the 2019 election as the start of their long and fruitful
political careers are now looking over their shoulders at the Labour
challengers snapping at their heels. Worse yet, MPs in nominally safe Tory
areas are worrying for the first time about whether they will be able to hold
onto their seats — and seriously questioning whether Johnson is the right
leader to lead them into the next election. The question is — will Dowden’s
decision be the catalyst for more Cabinet and ministerial resignations?
Rebels
assemble: Tory rebels certainly view these elections as a flashpoint in
Johnson’s leadership. “It’s not just midterm blues,” one Conservative backbench
source who has spent time on the ground in Tiverton and Honiton texted Playbook
late last night. “Even our own activists and voluntary party running the
campaign were unhappy about the PM.”
Twisting
the knife: “When we suffered by-election losses during the Cameron years
(though none in such rock-solid places as Tiverton and Honiton), it was taken
on the chin because the government back then was actually doing Conservative
things,” the same source said. “A loss in Tiverton and Honiton can’t just be
shrugged off. It would precipitate electoral disaster, which can only be
avoided by replacing Boris Johnson with the better leadership the Conservative
Party needs and deserves.”
That’s all
very well but: Johnson won a confidence vote among his own MPs less than three
weeks ago, and party rules dictate that he cannot face another for 12 months
from then. Rebels hope, however, that by getting enough members of the
anti-Boris brigade onto the 1922 Tory backbench committee executive they can
set in motion a rule change that allows them to oust him. The elections to the
’22 exec are shrouded in secrecy but Playbook is told they are expected to
conclude before the summer recess on July 21.
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