Julian Lewis: the defence studies fanatic who got a bumbling Number 10 to back down

One of Julian Lewis’s first political acts was to infiltrate the Labour Party. Between 1976 and 1978 he posed as a moderate, won control of the Newham North East constituency party, and set out to reverse the deselection of the sitting moderate MP, Reg Prentice. His efforts went as far as to obtain a High Court injunction to stop the local party from meeting.

The attempt ultimately failed, and Prentice, who later became a Conservative himself, was deselected. But Lewis had brought to national attention the problem of militant entryism in Labour’s most radical local party.

“What was happening was that a small unrepresentative minority were making all the running,” he explained. “I wanted to beat them using their own tactics.”

In a 1977 Observer article about the events, Lewis was described as “able, single-minded, egocentric and fanatical.” At the time, neither the reporter nor local Labour members knew that he was in essence spying on behalf of the Freedom Association, the libertarian group which was funding him.

It was in that vein – Machiavellian and sordidly funny – that Lewis continued to oppose the British Left in his pre-parliamentary years. In 1982, he was arrested for breaching the peace while playing God Save The Queen over an anti-Falklands war protest headed by Tony Benn and Arthur Scargill.

He again appeared in High Court papers in 1983, this time as the subject of a request for an injunction by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, which wanted to stop him from illustrating an anti-CND leaflet with a red hammer and sickle superimposed over the peace symbol.

Then a research director for the Coalition for Peace Through Security, Lewis left the court holding his group’s latest poster: “CND – COMMUNISTS, NEUTRALISTS, DEFEATISTS”. A month later, the same slogan was flown over an anti-nuclear demonstration outside an American communications base in Yorkshire.

In 1990 Lewis, seen as a political streetfighter, was brought in-house by the Conservative Research Department, becoming the unit’s deputy director, to the bewilderment of Opposition MPs.

Alan Williams, the former Labour Industry Minister, told The Independent: “Good grief. That’s astonishing. He makes Mrs Thatcher look like a dangerous leftie.”

The then General Secretary of CND, Meg Beresford, also spoke out: “I just wonder if the Tories understand what they have taken on. If he’s going to be involved in running the next election it’s likely to be pretty dirty,” she said.

Lewis responded characteristically: “If people cover themselves in dirt and we point it out, then you could perhaps say there is some justice in the charge.”

Beresford turned out to be right. Lewis became the “Rottweiler” of the Tory campaign machine, in the words of Gordon Greig of the Daily Mail.

“Lewis… who specialises in defence studies – both literally and metaphorically speaking – is a rare and remarkable species. In fact, it is probably true to say that the Tory Party has never seen anyone quite like him,” he said.

Within a year of his appointment, the Rottweiler proved incredibly effective. He helped apply pressure on Labour leader Neil Kinnock, who u-turned on unilateral nuclear disarmament. The Labour leader’s “clarification” on Trident meant pivoting to the position that Britain should retain nuclear capability indefinitely until multilateral disarmament was achieved. Lewis had penned campaigning letters in the national press.

The confusion surrounding the volte face allowed the Tories to claim that Kinnock was shaky on the matter – a unilateralist at heart, under the sway of the CND.

Such achievements in the CRD made Lewis a shoo-in for the Tory candidate selection in New Forest East in 1996. His friend, John Bercow, had a more difficult time as he was contesting multiple constituencies, so Lewis hired helicopters to fly him between clashing selection meetings.

The Rottweiler had such an extraordinary background – first as a security scholar at Oxford, then as a political infiltrator, and finally as an effective Conservative Party spinner – that some in Westminster believed he was very close to MI5 and MI6, infiltrating and bashing communist-leaning organisations at the peak of the Cold War.

Lewis is a clandestine operator. He remains the only Member of Parliament to conduct official business solely with pen and paper.

“Letters, phone calls, and, where appropriate, surgery appointments are perfectly adequate for people who genuinely need my help, as the many letters of thanks quoted on my website fully confirm. Only mass, manipulative campaigners and obsessive individuals find this a problem – and so they should,” he wrote in The Guardian.

Between 2015 and 2019 Lewis found his place in Parliament, chairing the influential Defence Select Committee. His education in strategic studies at Oxford, experience in the Royal Navy Reserve and extensive campaigning on military spending made him a natural fit. He retains close ties with the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), a think-tank which convenes foreign policy thinkers, military experts, and security and intelligence operatives.

Recently, he took a step up to the more powerful Intelligence and Security Committee, becoming one of five Conservative members in the new grouping. It was no secret that he had ambitions to chair the committee, but he was overlooked by Number 10 in favour Chris Grayling, the former Transport Secretary who famously awarded a £14 million ferrying contract to a company with no ships, whom Downing Street saw as a loyalist.

Number 10’s behaviour was seen as repugnant by both Lewis and the wider national security establishment. So, true to form, the Rottweiler launched a last-minute bid to defeat Grayling this week. The “coup” was predictably successful, and Number 10 subsequently removed the whip from him.

The plot was quietly hatched with Opposition MPs two days prior, with the secret kept until the moment of maximum opportunity. Lewis seized the chair of the nine-seat committee with the votes of four non-Tory committee members in addition to his own.

It was so flawlessly conducted that, like the Newham Labour Party members of the 70s, Grayling didn’t really know what Lewis was doing until after his fate was sealed. He is said to have found out with minutes to spare.

With Grayling out of the way, Lewis is now facing up to Number 10’s macho-men, who may well have met their match this time. Yesterday morning, the Intelligence and Security Committee quietly convened under its new chair and agreed to publish the long-delayed report into Russian interference in British democracy, which is widely expected to name and shame major Conservative Party donors.

Today, Downing Street appears to have surrendered control of the committee. It had considered removing Lewis altogether via a motion in the Commons, as Corbyn did with former Labour MPs who joined The Independent Group. The Tories have a right to their allocation of committee seats – membership of committees is determined in proportion to parties’ level of representation in the Commons – which would include a replacement for the newly-independent Lewis, but, tellingly, has opted against calling a vote.

The backpedalling highlights the influence Lewis continues to have over Conservative backbenchers, who appear somewhat frightened to boot him off the committee. Sir Charles Walker, a vice-chairman of the 1922 Committee of Tory MPs, told The Times: “I really hope that the wider House of Commons is not asked to become involved in this dispute.”

Another senior MP protested: “Nothing would more effectively crystallise the opposition on the backbenches they appear determined to foment. There’s nothing worse in politics than looking like an ineffectual bully.”

Getting Johnson’s Downing Street to surrender isn’t an easy task, but as Gordon Greig noted in 1990, the old Rottweiler specialises in defence studies – both literally and metaphorically.