Conservative Conference: Boris under pressure to pull his party together
This year’s Conservative Party Conference is suitably bizarre for our times. Rather than following Labour in presenting their conference as a series of Zoom speeches, Conservative organisers have attempted to replicate the conference atmosphere in a new virtual platform, complete with a virtual conference hall, a virtual reception desk, and even virtual business stalls (lest they lose sponsorship revenue). An attendee’s character can walk into a 3D auditorium, sit alongside other soulless pixels, and watch keynote speeches on a screen within a screen.
There have already been some glitches with the technology, however. Attendees were unable to log into the virtual platform on Saturday to watch an event with Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Michael Gove. A message from the party followed shortly afterwards: “We are currently having some technical issues therefore you may not experience the full functionality of… the platform at the moment.” Let’s hope such problems don’t occur when Boris Johnson gives his big speech.
But for Douglass Ross, the conference kick-off was a largely positive affair. The new Scottish Conservative leader received overwhelming praise for his tub-thumping defence of the Union, which included thinly-veiled criticisms of his own party’s leaders. “Despite bold promises, the Union too often becomes an afterthought. In successive governments, it is given warm words and lip service but sadly too often there is little action,” he pronounced. “I campaigned for three long years to win a referendum to stop independence, but I now get told that it is inevitable by people that have barely ever been to Scotland.”
Having snatched his party’s attention, Ross will appear in several other fringe events throughout the week, the most notable of which being a conversation with his predecessor Ruth Davidson.
Usually the home of drunken parties and outrageous anecdotes, the conference fringes have – like most events this year – been transformed into a mundane series of web lectures. Event titles include” “Building your political CV”, “Ambitious for youth work”, “Young Conservatives panel”, “A sustainable economy” and “Faith-Food-Fitness”. Without a champagne bottle in sight, these will probably attract much smaller audiences than usual – although there will be some interesting “conversations” with the likes of Rishi Sunak and Matt Hancock.
The keynote speeches have also been watered down, with a truncated schedule only allowing time for cabinet representatives from the four Great Offices of State – the Prime Minister, Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab delivered his speech on Saturday, revealing that when Boris Johnson was taken to intensive care, he was “really worried” that the Prime Minister might die, adding that he “worried for Carrie [Symonds]” and her then-unborn baby. And yesterday, Home Secretary Priti Patel appeared to make the most of her speech, announcing her intention to introduce legislation for the “biggest overhaul” of the asylum system in decades, “because what exists now is neither firm nor fair”. It was a vague promise, but one which triggers what will undoubtedly become a highly contentious policy debate.
“No doubt those who are well-rehearsed in how to play and profit from the broken system will lecture us on their grand theories about human rights. If at times it means being unpopular on Twitter, I will bear it,” Patel added.
Today we will hear from Chancellor Rishi Sunak, who is expected to say that nobody who loses their job during the pandemic will be “left without hope”. In a pre-speech interview with The Sun, Sunak also doubled-down on his criticism of a lockdown-suppression strategy to deal with the virus, which in recent weeks has put him at odds with the Prime Minister. “There are other things that are important,” he said. “Kids not being in school for months… if university students’ learning is impacted that’s not a good thing.”
Sunak continued: “People not showing up for medical appointments because they’re worried is not a good thing. And obviously the economic impact [of lockdown] on people’s jobs and incomes and insecurity is not a good thing.” It will be interesting to see if Sunak adopts a similar line in his keynote later, which would be considered another example of the Chancellor undermining Johnson and manoeuvring for the top job.
The biggest speech will of course come from the Prime Minister himself, who will wrap up the conference with his keynote address tomorrow morning – a day earlier than the traditional Wednesday conclusion. It is not yet clear what Johnson’s message or tone will be, but a tired and fractured Conservative party is looking for leadership and hope from the leader. It will be an opportunity for the Prime Minister to suppress the recent – and increasingly public – criticism he has faced from the Conservative parliamentary party.
Yet, if Johnson bumbles, mumbles and obfuscates, the criticisms and division will only grow louder and wider.