‘Big Dog’ returns: is the nation ready for a Boris Johnson comeback?

‘Big Dog’ returns: is the nation ready for a Boris Johnson comeback?

Mar 14, 2024 | Bylines, News

As the nation anxiously awaits the announcement of a general election, hints of Boris Johnson’s return are causing a stir, writes Bremain Chair Sue Wilson MBE for Yorkshire Bylines.

In the run-up to the forthcoming general election, are we about to see Boris Johnson making a comeback? If reports in the Express are to be believed, Johnson is the Conservative Party’s secret weapon. Or at least, in the eyes of his supporters.

 

The suggestion is for Johnson to be “deployed” in red wall seats in the north of England and the Midlands, making speeches and appearing on leaflets in marginal constituencies. A government source said:

“Don’t expect Boris to appear on stage with Rishi – that’s not going to happen – but he is up for it. The relationship is in a fairly good place.”

Whilst there have been reports suggesting a thawing of relations between Johnson and Rishi Sunak, these have been disputed by one of Johnson’s most loyal supporters, Nadine Dorries. Not only is there no thawing of relations, she says, but there are “no plans to campaign”. She added that “Sunak had not spoken to Johnson for over a year”. The country should be so lucky!

The Johnson hokey-cokey

As for Johnson’s relationship with parliament, he has form for having a one-foot-in, one-foot-out position. Not only has he resigned twice as an MP, but even as PM he was often AWOL from Westminster and his prime-ministerial duties, even in times of crisis.

Johnson resigned as MP for Henley-on-Thames in June 2008, following his election as London mayor. His second resignation, as MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip, came in June 2023, just four years after leading the Conservative Party to an 80-seat majority in parliament. This resignation came after a series of political scandals – in particular following the Partygate inquiry – described by Johnson as a “witch-hunt”. But in true Terminator style, at the time, he pledged “I’ll be back”.

This latest move in the Johnson hokey-cokey may not, however, just consist of his deployment in red wall constituencies. He may also be looking to return to his former safe seat in Henley and may have even higher ambitions.

Rowing back up the Thames

In May 2023, Johnson bought a £3.8mn, nine-bedroom mansion in Oxfordshire, close to his former Henley constituency. Ever since, there has been speculation he has his sights set on a return to his former seat – the current MP, John Howell, having announced his decision to step down just one month earlier. Now new rumours are circulating that Johnson and his supporters have a plan to return their hero to Henley, at the very least.

In a recent article in the Telegraph, a “secret plan for Boris to take back the Tory Party”, was revealed. The ‘Henley plot’ sees Johnson’s reinstatement as an MP as the first step towards his return as leader of the Conservative Party. Presumably – in the eyes of his delusional supporters, this would not only save the party from self-inflicted destruction but see Johnson back as PM as well.

Losing the plot

The ‘bring back Boris’ proposition may have seemed like a good one on paper, but the plot has hit a snag. That snag comes in the shape of Caroline Newton, recently selected by the party to stand in the Henley constituency. Johnson’s plotters may have assumed that she would simply step aside to make way for the ‘Big Dog’, but Newton was having none of it.

When asked on LBC whether she would consider making way for Johnson, Newton said, “Absolutely not”. She added that “the idea that a woman should step aside for a man to take a job that he just fancies is absurd. And it’s certainly not something I’m going to do”. Newton also pointed out that she has been a candidate representing the local communities, as a councillor, for a decade and if asked, would say “thank you for the thought, but no thank you”.

According to Johnson, the qualities needed to be a good MP for Henley are a willingness to listen and patience – neither of which anyone who has ever met him, watched him or listened to him would suggest he possesses. He described the people of Henley as “the nicest, kindest, most wonderful and indeed eccentric people in Britain”. As a newly re-registered overseas voter in the Henley constituency, I’ll take that – and most everything Johnson has to say – with a very large bucket of salt.

Above all, said Johnson, “the quality you need to represent the people of Henley is to be a Conservative”. But what, exactly, does being “a Conservative” even mean anymore? Not what it once did, that’s for sure, and certainly not what the electorate regard as a vote-winner, whether you live in Henley or Halifax.

Still, not to worry, Boris. I’m sure the Reform UK Party would welcome you with open arms, and you’d feel right at home. Perhaps they’ll even let you run in Henley. You have, after all, done untold damage to the Conservative Party, and the country, already. So why not break the habit of a lifetime and finish what you started?

New Frontex deal: closing the gap with the EU

New Frontex deal: closing the gap with the EU

Feb 24, 2024 | Bylines, News

The new Frontex deal signals that the UK is continuing cooperative relations with its neighbours – this can only work in both parties’ favour, writes Bremain Chair Sue Wilson MBE for Yorkshire Bylines. 

A new Frontex border deal aimed at reducing the number of small boat Channel crossings has been agreed between the UK and the EU. With both the opposition and the government now actively seeking closer ties and better cooperation with Europe on a number of issues, has Britain taken its first steps towards rejoining the EU?

The new Frontex deal

The new deal will see UK’s Border Force cooperating more closely with European border agency, Frontex, on matters of training, intelligence and the implementation of new operations and technology. The deal was signed on Friday in London by European Home Affairs Commissioner, Ylva Johansson and Foreign Secretary, James Cleverly.

Cleverly described the “landmark working arrangement” as “another crucial step in tackling illegal migration, securing our borders and stopping the boats”. The foreign secretary also said it was part of the government’s plan to “break the model of the smuggling gangs”. He admitted that people smuggling was one of a number of “global challenges that require shared solutions and ambitions”. Well, quite – the list of issues requiring better cooperation with our neighbours is a long one.

 

Labour want to reset relations

Despite his insistence that Labour can make Brexit work, Keir Starmer has been keen to improve relations with Brussels. It would appear that the EU are also keen to work with a new Labour government and are set to offer a reset of post-Brexit relations if Starmer wins the general election.

A review of the existing UK/EU trade and cooperation agreement (TCA) is scheduled for 2026, presenting an opportunity for a closer trading partnership. Although any new arrangement would exclude rejoining the single market or customs union – both ruled out by Starmer – a closer deal could help businesses to import and export food and cars. Although Brussels have insisted that the review of the TCA will only be a technical process designed to ensure the agreement is working properly, there appears to be some room for manoeuvre.

A senior EU diplomat described the 2026 TCA review as “a big opportunity for Starmer, potentially”. He added that if there is “a political will to make real changes to the relationship then that will be extremely significant”. Another EU source suggested that Labour were looking at ways “it can get closer rather than further away from Europe”.

Shadow Cabinet Office Minister, Nick Thomas-Symonds said:

“An incoming Labour government will reset relations with key European allies. The wider trade and co-operation agreement review could provide an opportunity to address some of the shortcomings in the Conservatives’ deal.”

A promising start, but will it be enough?

Closing the gap

The latest deal with the EU is not the first time since Brexit that the government has sought improved cooperation with our European neighbours. Others include an agreement last year with the French government to boost British/French law-enforcement cooperation. Nor is it the first time the EU and UK have discussed working more closely together to solve the small boats crisis – PM Rishi Sunak met with European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen in this regard last May.

A big move towards closer ties with Europe came last year when the UK agreed to rejoin the Horizon Europe programme – the EU’s key funding programme for research and development, with a budget of €95.5bn euros. Having left the scheme in 2021 thanks to Brexit, the UK will now contribute €2.43bn euros a year to the scheme, plus an additional €154mn euros for membership of the Copernicus earth observation programme.

Scientists and researchers will be the main beneficiaries in the case of Horizon Europe. Other industries, such as car and food manufacturers, must wait and hope that future discussions will prove as fruitful for them. Meanwhile, calls for action for other sectors like the music industry, and demands for a UK return to the Erasmus education programme, are gathering momentum.

In reality, it’s difficult to think of any UK industry that wouldn’t benefit from closer European ties, less bureaucracy and a more cooperative approach. Especially, perhaps, in the event of a Trump return in the US. But, is each new deal, each new arrangement, a step closer towards Europe? In the minds of our politicians, probably not – at least not for now.

New government, new attitude?

The incoming government will be faced with a myriad of issues, conflicting priorities and a mountain of debt. A new attitude towards Europe will be both desirable and welcomed by UK businesses, who according to Labour, want “a government that won’t try and pick fights”. No doubt that’s true, but surely businesses also want a strong economy, a removal of trade barriers, and the ability to hire European workers. They want to be part of a prosperous, outward-looking country with European values, and tinkering around the edges – welcome as that is – will never be enough to completely turn around the country’s fortunes.

Rejoining the EU was never going to be an easy or speedy prospect, and one that the government wish to avoid at all costs. The Conservatives have done all they can – though not as much as they would have hoped – to distance the UK from the EU and make it more difficult to reverse Brexit. But they have failed. They have lost business and public support, caused untold economic damage, and been caught out in their Brexit lies.

In a global world, the UK cannot go it alone – a fact that even our isolationist government is having to accept. Step by step, we are closing the gap between London and Brussels, rebuilding damaged bridges and trust. It’s a journey that will require courage, determination and a fresh perspective. Let’s hope our new government are intrepid travellers with EU passports!

‘Stop! Think Fraud’ – perhaps the government should take its own advice

‘Stop! Think Fraud’ – perhaps the government should take its own advice

Feb 14, 2024 | Bylines, News

The government has gained another ‘X’ community note for its ‘Stop! Think Fraud’ campaign – if only it had been more careful itself, writes Bremain Chair Sue Wilson MBE for Yorkshire Bylines. 

The Home Office has launched a campaign with the slogan ‘Stop! Think Fraud’ aimed at helping the public “spot fraud” and protect themselves from its “devastating impacts”. According to the government website, the campaign is backed by “leading counter fraud experts uniting under one voice to provide consistent, clear and robust advice”.

On the one hand, it’s comforting to hear that our government is prepared to listen to experts once more. But it rather raises the question, where were these experts when questions were being asked of government ministers regarding questionable PPE contracts?

 

The ‘Stop! Think Fraud’ campaign

Of all recorded crimes committed in England and Wales, fraud accounts for 40% of the total, with an estimated 3.2 million offences each year, according to government statistics. The cost of that fraud is estimated at £6.8bn in England and Wales alone. While that’s not an insignificant figure, and deserves some government attention, it’s small fry compared to the £100bn hit to UK exports revealed in the latest analysis of Brexit damage. But don’t hold your breath waiting for a government campaign designed at fixing that problem.

The government anticipates that its anti-fraud campaign “will be seen by 95% of adults in the UK” over the coming weeks thanks to blanket coverage on radio, TV, social media and billboards. Home Secretary James Cleverly said the “bold” fraud strategy will continue to “deliver for the British people”. A bold, new strategy? Perhaps. A tired old idiom? Most definitely.

Security Minister Tom Tugendhat added, “This new campaign will share the details we all need to defend ourselves and our friends”. Perhaps, in some future anti-crime campaign, he’ll be suggesting a similar approach to defending ourselves against muggers or burglars. Sounds, to me, rather like ‘you’re on your own!’

Fraud in the name of Covid

In Cleverly’s video, he claims fraud has been cut by 13% in England and Wales over the last year. Within 24 hours, that claim had already been challenged on social media as “misleading”, as the police had reported a 15% increase in fraud.  Not only that, but the rate of fraud has increased by 128% when compared with September 2013.

As for the government themselves, perhaps they could also focus on issues much closer to home, such as the long-running National Crime Agency investigation into allegations of fraud and bribery faced by Conservative peer Michelle Mone and her husband.

The prime minister himself has also been under scrutiny in regard to his actions during the pandemic. In June 2023, a report revealed that government losses to fraud had quadrupled, under the then chancellor Rishi Sunak, from £5.5bn to £21bn, according to the Commons Public Accounts Committee.

HM Revenue and Customs – the direct responsibility of Sunak – suffered enormously due to this rise in fraud, thanks to £97bn being spent on the pandemic furlough scheme, the bounce back loan scheme and the disastrous ‘Eat out to Help Out’ scheme. While some efforts have been made to recover the £4.9bn lost to fraud and error from the bounce back loan scheme alone, only limited amounts have been recovered to date. Judging by recent events, Sunak’s judgment has not improved with advancement. Neither has his knowledge of balancing the books, it would seem.

Last year, a National Audit Office report revealed the staggering increase – almost fourfold – in public money being lost to fraud since the beginning of the pandemic – money that is unlikely to ever be fully recovered. Not only is that money long gone, but the government is keeping very quiet on the subject. While the wrongdoings of some government colleagues seemingly go unpunished, the general public are facing ever tougher sentences for much lesser crimes.

“Nobody is immune from fraud”, the government campaign tells us. Some in high places are, it would seem, a little more immune than others.

Stop! Think Fraud

In Cleverly’s promotional video he promises to “not let fraudsters in”, encourages us to “protect ourselves” and advises us to “take a minute to stop and think fraud”. Sound advice! Let’s make sure to repeat it often in the run-up to the election.

Liz Truss and her Popular Conservatives are just another populist con

Liz Truss and her Popular Conservatives are just another populist con

Feb 13, 2024 | Bylines, News

The launch of the splinter group the Popular Conservatives last week was met with derision. But their mission is both tired and dangerous. Bremain Vice Chair Lisa Burton writes for Bylines Cymru.

What a feast of delusion and desperation we witnessed at the launch of yet another Conservative splinter group last week. The Popular Conservatives, or PopCon, is another attempt by people formerly known as Conservatives to force their America-adapted, far-right populist, totalitarian ideas on the country, this time under the banner of ‘popular Conservatism’. There’s nothing popular or conservative about them.

The record holder for the shortest premiership in UK history was the star of the show. Liz Truss arrived to rapturous applause. Her fiscal policies and uncosted tax cuts almost crashed our economy, forcing the Bank of England to take emergency measures to save pensions. She cost the country billions and caused interest rate rises that have so far cost homeowners over £300bn in higher mortgage payments.

Yet Truss reaps rich rewards and is invited to speak at events as if she’s an economics guru. It would be unthinkable at any other time, but these are no ordinary times. Failing spectacularly seems to be the Conservative brand now. And it is failing our country.

 

The true secret Conservatives

Truss said “Britain is full of secret Conservatives – people who agree with us but don’t want to admit it.” The Conservative Foundation website states that the “Conservative Party has always stood for personal liberty, democracy, and the rule of law.” But your personal liberty to stand up for the environment, LGBTQ+ rights, human rights, international law, and the right to asylum doesn’t exist in their vision of Britain. Democracy and the rule of law are seen as nothing but irritants holding Conservatives back by the capacity to hold them to account.

You don’t have to look hard for evidence that today’s Conservative Party is nothing like it was. Look at the crackdown on the fundamental right to protest through the Public Order Bill, which has been criticised globally. Witness their attacks on the independence of the Electoral Commission, which experts warn is part of an alarming trend of watering down and undermining trust in British democracy.

See also voter gerrymandering, or attacks on British institutions, lawyers, civil servants, celebrities, ‘experts’, unions, and our world-renowned judiciary. And, of course, breaking international law over the doomed Rwanda policy. Such actions are blatantly totalitarian in nature and have nothing to do with ‘popular conservatism’.

When Truss refers to “secret conservatives”, she means those who support these attacks on our institutions. Those who think foreigners, minorities, the LGBTQ+ community, and anyone ‘different’ (from them) should be tolerated only as long as they stay in their box and don’t make a fuss. She appeals to the worst impulses in us.

Modern McCarthyism

You don’t need to be a racist, bigot, or xenophobe, though all would find a natural home here. Sadly, many who fall for this narrative have been made to feel angry or fearful. They feel they and their communities have been left behind and that politicians put others in society before them. This part, at least, is genuine: those who attended PopCon do only care about a tiny section of society. The con is making the masses believe it’s them, when all the evidence suggests they only care about themselves and those at the top of the food chain.

They don’t admit they are socialists or communists anymore. It’s all about taking power away from people and families and giving power to the state. The problem is the Conservatives had tried to appease these people. We have tried to triangulate. For years and years and years – it goes back two decades – Conservatives have not taken on the leftwing extremists.

Liz Truss

In the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s, Senator Joseph McCarthy ran a campaign of political repression and persecution of leftwing people, spreading fear and hysteria regarding alleged communist and Soviet influence on American institutions. Lives and reputations were ruined, and people were wrongly imprisoned. It was a dangerous and shameful era with enduring repercussions, and is often cited as an example of how unfounded fears can compromise or destroy civil liberties.

The primary targets for persecution were government employees, prominent figures in the entertainment industry, academics, leftwing politicians, and labour union activists. Sound familiar?

The true net zero zealots

In addition to Truss’ comments above, we’ve heard other ‘Conservatives’ talk of the “blob”, the “wokerati”, “metropolitan elites”. It’s nothing new, just different terminology. Such a shame we human beings forget our history, and that our nature leaves us open to manipulation by ‘fear of the other’ or things we don’t understand. It’s the root cause of many of the world’s ills. Just think how many governments currently use ‘others’ to create a climate of fear.

Populists say they represent the people, the will of the people, the common folk, or the silent majority. “Hardworking families”. This is the biggest and most necessary con of all. They themselves are the elites they loudly rally against.

They don’t, as they claim, want to row back on net zero to save households money. The fossil fuels industry made average profits of $2.8bn per day over the last 50 years. Of course those companies want that to continue. They feed some of those billions-per-day into ‘think tanks’, lobbyists, and political donations to ensure it. They can afford to.

It’s well documented that the organiser and some attendees of PopCon have links to climate change denial organisations and the fossil fuels industry. Is it any wonder they hosted politicians who attacked net zero policies, and handed out leaflets calling for an end to “net zero zealotry”?

Holding Britain back

The wholesale price of electricity is set under the ‘marginal cost pricing system’ by the most expensive method needed to meet demand (usually burning gas). If your renewable unit of energy was 50% of the cost of a unit produced by gas, you’d still pay the gas price unit. It’s not a ‘green tax’ that’s keeping your energy prices high.

Renewables are cheaper; the government admits this, and there is ample evidence. Yet anti-net zero radicals would apparently prefer that the country be held to ransom by authoritarian regimes like Russia and Saudi Arabia. And to be vulnerable to volatile supply chains and prices, and the world events adding to that volatility.

A green industrial revolution is underway and is not going anywhere. It will provide highly skilled and secure jobs, boost the country’s economy, and protect the planet. Countries are racing to take advantage of and consolidate the new technologies required. Yet Truss, Jacob Rees-Mogg, and their ilk want the UK to sit back and allow other countries to win this race; to hold Britain back. Why, and to whose benefit? Certainly not for that of this country or its citizens!

Rees-Mogg attacks the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), judges, and the “international elite”. To stop your country falling to the far right, fascism, or totalitarianism, constitutional checks and balances including domestic and international law protect the people and the nation. This is why today’s ‘Conservatives’ make such attacks.

A true Conservative would be aghast, but these are far right populists. Their very behaviour establishes that. Law and its institutions hold them back from creating a society in which total control and power lie in the hands of the few to benefit the few.

 

Populist Conservatives: a populist con

They identify an enemy, always a minority – refugees, asylum seekers, trans people, or, these days, climate change protesters – building anger and fear around such groups, which they say are dangerous to society, ‘the family’, and the country. They portray judges as enemies, and tell the public they can’t protect them because unreasonable laws prevent it and lawyers are ‘on the left’. It’s absurd, of course. The law can only be applied as it’s written, and lawyers are duty-bound to be unbiased.

A globally trading democracy can’t function as such if not bound by international agreements and laws, with a robust domestic legal system. Unless you want to be like North Korea, and maybe Rees-Mogg does?

If you think leaving the ECHR is a good idea, or want to abandon human rights because you think it’ll only affect asylum seekers, ask yourself: would Popular Conservatives stop there? Which rights are you willing to give up so a few people can be sent to Rwanda unlawfully?

Richard Murphy sums up Truss and the Popular Conservatives perfectly in his blog, Funding the Future. “This is, then, an agenda that explicitly permits the powerful with a grudge to abuse anyone they wish with impunity. And anything that gets in the way, like democratic government and the rule of law, must be vilified or abolished.”

Please, don’t help make them popular, or let them con you into believing otherwise.

Election 2024: Conservatives face backlash from British citizens living overseas

Election 2024: Conservatives face backlash from British citizens living overseas

Jan 29, 2024 | Bylines, News

Is the Conservative Party wise to hire a coordinator to drum up support from British citizens living overseas? Sue Wilson MBE, Bremain Chair, writes for Yorkshire Bylines. 

On 16 January, UK voting rights were finally restored to disenfranchised British citizens living overseas. After decades of campaigning and years of broken manifesto promises, millions of Britons outside of the UK may finally have something to thank the Conservative Party for. Or so the government might think.

No sooner had overseas Brits welcomed the news that our democratic rights had been restored than we were affronted by reports of the recruitment of an ‘overseas voter registration coordinator’. The task of the government’s new coordinator is to mobilise support from abroad in 100 key target seats, including many of those in the ‘red wall’.

What the government may have misunderstood – and not for the first time – is the sheer level of anger and frustration felt by overseas British citizens at the way we have been ignored, excluded and misrepresented, especially over Brexit.

 

Conservatives faring badly at home

The latest YouGov Westminster voting intention figures (2–3 January 2024) show the Conservatives are suffering badly in the polls – languishing at only 22%, with Labour well in front on 46%. Bad enough, but the latest figures are even worse than those for the previous month, so the government’s ‘popularity’ is getting worse. The prime minister’s own ratings are faring no better either, including from within his own party.

With an election looming, the government will no doubt be aiming to pull out all the stops in an effort to turn the tide of public opinion. But based on recent failed attempts – by the prime minister especially – to claim achievements not in evidence, or to point the finger of blame at those not in power, the British public have wised up.

Perhaps the government believes that Brits living overseas will look on them more favourably since they restored our voting rights. Perhaps they believe that we don’t pay as close attention to what they’ve been up to as those living closer to Westminster. Perhaps they even believe, like many of the British public, that we’re all wealthy, retired and politically illiterate. They’d be wrong on all counts

 

British citizens living overseas: we haven’t forgotten

Four years on from Brexit, and seven and a half years after the referendum, the wounds we suffered still smart. Many were denied their democratic voting rights in the 2016 referendum. Many were denied the opportunity to vote against a Brexit government in subsequent general elections.

Yet we still had to deal with the consequences and the removal of our rights, benefits and opportunities. Those valuable EU citizenship rights – not least our freedom of movement – were ours, we were led to believe, for life. Now we, and you, have less rights and protections, and those wishing to follow in our footsteps are less able to do so.

While the anger, upset and shock of Brexit may have abated a little, the government continue to give us plenty to get mad about. Even from a distance, it’s difficult to ignore the extremist leanings of an increasingly desperate – and let’s be honest, barking mad – government. We may not live in the UK, but we are not blind or deaf, even if the government have continually treated us as though we were.

 

A rude awakening beckons

If the Conservatives seriously believed that restoring our overseas voting rights would work in their electoral favour, they may be in for a very rude awakening. Former Times correspondent, William Chislett, who has lived in Spain since 1986, told the I newspaper, “Over the last 14 years, they have broken Britain. There are 150 reasons to get them out”. He added in a tweet, “No party could be worse than the current Conservatives” – an opinion widely shared both at home and abroad.

Debbie Williams MBE, former Conservative supporter and founder of campaign group Brexpats – Hear our Voice, summed up the feeling of many as follows:

“They can try and garner all the support from UK citizens overseas but I can tell you one thing, we have long memories.”

 

Williams added, “they threw us under the Brexit bus so they’d better think again as they are going to be punished into eternity at the ballot box”.

It remains to be seen what the government might do next to influence the votes of former Conservative supporters both at home and abroad, but their options are fast running out. Their rhetoric – factual or otherwise – is no longer getting through. Everything they have tried to date has failed miserably, and they have lost the public’s trust.

Gina Miller, leader of the True & Fair Party and prospective MP for Epsom and Ewell, asked the question “what bribe will they try to entice expats to vote for them? Bribery is all they have left!”. Whatever enticement they might try, it’s not going to work because whatever they promise us now, we’re never going to believe a word of it.

Sunak delivers speech alongside Europe’s hard-right populists

Sunak delivers speech alongside Europe’s hard-right populists

Dec 26, 2023 | Bylines, News

Rishi Sunak rubs shoulders with hard-right leaders at political festival in Rome, writes Bremain Treasurer Helen Johnston for Yorkshire Bylines.

 

Rishi Sunak is clearly short on friends these days. Reinforcing ties with countries that newly-minted Lord Cameron calls Britain’s “friends, neighbours and partners” seems laudable, but is a right-wing political festival in Rome, organised by Giorgia Meloni’s hardline Brothers of Italy party, really the diplomatic place to start?

Five years ago the headline guests at the ‘Atreju’ festival were Steve Bannon, the ‘brains’ behind Donald Trump, and everybody’s favourite right-wing troublemaker, Nigel Farage. In 2019, Hungary’s Victor Orbán took centre stage at the conference.

These are all figures that are considered to lurk on the hard-right of European and international politics. Not exactly your respectable, mainstream politicians. So, what does it tell us that the prime minister of the United Kingdom is now prepared to follow in their footsteps?

 

Sunak takes the platform

Speaking at the festival, Sunak used the platform to warn that “enemies” were “deliberately driving people to our shores to try and destabilise our society” and called for changes to the international framework on asylum rules. His comments have duly drawn criticism from opposition MPs, with Alistair Carmichael, Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesperson stating:

“Infighting within the Conservative party is now generating a bidding war to see who can make the most toxic contribution to the debate … instead of posturing, Rishi Sunak would do better to focus on tackling the asylum backlog that is leaving people in limbo and costing the taxpayers billions.”

Sunak is rubbing shoulders with Elon Musk, who has brought the social media platform X (formerly Twitter) into disrepute since he bought it out, and the leader of Spain’s hard-right VOX party, Santiago Abascal.

 

Who are VOX?

VOX has emerged as the main far-right party in Spain over the past few years, its popularity boosted by a backlash against Catalan independence, and a socially conservative reaction to progressive policies including women’s, gay and trans rights.

Abascal is facing calls for a police investigation following remarks in which he claimed a time would come when the Spanish people would want to see current prime minister Pedro Sánchez “strung up by his feet”. He was recently one of the instigators of mass demonstrations that spilled over into riots, protesting against Sánchez’s coalition deal with Catalan nationalist parties. At those protests, Abascal was spotted in the company of US polemicist and conspiracy theorist, Tucker Carlson, who remarkably managed to be sacked by Fox News for being too extreme, even for them.

Last week, Pedro Sánchez spoke at the European Parliament to review the Spanish presidency, which ends this month. A VOX MEP intervened to say:

“Mr Sánchez, you will go down in history. Generations of Spaniards will study in history books your narcissistic, manipulative, uncaring and morally unscrupulous conduct. Millions of Spaniards live on the poverty line, and you decided to fleece the middle classes by raising taxes and distributing European funds to public bodies to weave your web of personal favours. Millions of Europeans are unsafe on the streets, but you decided to surrender our borders to the arrival of mass immigration.” (my translation)

By the company you keep, shall you be known

Sunak’s flirting with the European hard-right has not gone unnoticed in the foreign media, and European leaders, including Spain’s new prime minister, will also surely be taking note.

When he appeared before the Lords European Affairs Committee, Cameron said he hoped that “a lot of the heat and anger has come out of the relationship [with Europe]” and he is keen to start talking with EU countries about easing certain rules and restrictions. It is difficult to see how his prime minister’s schmoozing with hard-right eurosceptic populists like Meloni and Abascal will help that process.