Soubry libretto turns breakaway into comic opera

The launch of the great Tory schism at a press conference thsi week belonged more to the province of the arts critic than the political analyst. The three defectors – Anna Soubry, Sarah Wollaston and Heidi Allen – gave a performance that, if set to music, would have qualified as comic opera.

First up was Heidi Allen, who described the epiphany that brought her into politics, to which she had previously been indifferent, as long ago as 2011, when she saw the Tottenham riots on television. “It was as if Lord Kitchener was pointing his finger out of the screen at me: ‘Your country needs you’.” (Is Ben Elton writing their scripts?)

Pausing to render tribute to David Cameron in “Poor Parnell – my dead king!” mode, Mrs Allen saluted the inspiration she had received from Dave’s Big Society vision – a response that puts her, among the British population of 66 million, in a small minority.

Sarah Wollaston was next, speaking more briefly, still peddling her “Blukip” narrative whereby the Conservative Party has been infiltrated by aliens, the kind of weirdoes who believe in British sovereignty and honouring electoral outcomes, at the expense of real Conservatives who adore Brussels and believe that an electorate so stupid and ignorant as to vote for Brexit must be educated by being made to vote again – and again after that, no doubt, if that is what it takes to get a Remain result.

The routine was rounded off by Anna Soubry. To listen to her is to gain insight into a mentality in which all reality is reversed, inverted and negated. She believes that she represents an authentic Toryism that has been debauched by Brexiteers. The doomed “modernisation” project that destroyed the coherence of the Conservative Party and drove large numbers of its supporters into the arms of UKIP is seen by her as the essence of her deracinated brand of pseudo-Toryism.

Soubry famously described the Conservative Party some time ago as “in hock to 35 hard ideological Brexiteers, who are not Tories”. She believes Jacob Rees-Mogg is not a proper Tory. Even the Guardian jibbed at that (it knows its enemies), but such remarks are significant because they highlight how alien genuine Conservatism is to these three defectors and their ilk.

Love him or loathe him, Jacob Rees-Mogg is probably the most quintessentially Tory politician since Bolingbroke. To suggest otherwise is to demonstrate a lamentable ignorance of Tory philosophy. That, of course, is the point: these three MPs have not left the Conservative Party, in any meaningful sense, since they never truly belonged to it. The startling reality that emerged throughout the press conference and in their previous utterances is that they are politically illiterate.

So was their prophet Dave: Big Society was based on the ideas of Saul Alinsky, a Trotskyite so far to the left that even the Trots disowned him. In Anna Soubry’s La La Land, people who believe an unpalatable democratic vote should be re-run, that Britain should not be a sovereign and independent nation, that it is vital to keep it subject to a corrupt and failing foreign entity – these are classical “Tories”. In contrast, those who respect Lord Randolph Churchill’s maxim “Trust the people”, who accept the verdict of the electorate and who patriotically desire to see Britain once again fully sovereign and prosperous – they belong to some kind of sinister “Purple Momentum”.

That is how far objective reality has become distorted. Even among themselves the three defectors are not united, with Soubry and Wollaston defending austerity, Allen promoting state dependency. But there is one thing that does unite them absolutely: the demand for a second Brexit referendum. If voters have been inadequately informed, or misinformed, as betrayed by the outcome, they must have an opportunity to cast their ballots again.

However – and this is a most peculiar anomaly that defies explanation – for some reason none of them favours a second vote for their constituents by subjecting themselves to by-elections. All three stood at the last election on a manifesto of respecting the referendum result and delivering a clean Brexit, while pledging their loyalty to a Conservative government. They have now reneged on all of that, even proclaiming their desire to destroy the Conservative Party. Do the Tory voters who elected them not deserve an opportunity to reconsider?

During her incoherent rant at the press conference Anna Soubry deplored the alleged persecution of Remainer Tories, such as Sir Oliver Letwin and Nick Boles, claiming “their only offence has been to support the Prime Minister’s withdrawal agreement”. Quite. And that infuriates the Tory grassroots because Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement is beyond appalling: on foreign policy, a crucial attribute of sovereignty, it would tie us even more tightly to EU policy than we have been as a member state.

So, no wonder Europhile Tories are supporting that blueprint for a more punitive humiliation of Britain than the most revanchist Remainer could desire; but that raises another question. Why did Soubry et al. not remain in the Conservative Party to support the sell-out? There are only two explanations, mutually compatible: they want a second referendum in the hope of getting a total reversal of Brexit, even restoring the EU anthem and flag, and defecting from their party ensured them more media attention.

The Soubrettes’ aim to destroy the Conservative Party is what theologians describe as a work of supererogation: their contribution is superfluous. The Tory leadership has that project well in hand. If May’s deal is imposed on the country or the Brexit impasse is extended beyond 29 March, the Conservatives will have committed suicide.

Leaving the Tories aside, however, there is one area in which the self-regarding Conservative defectors threaten to do real mischief. They may already have compromised the effort to de-Corbynize the Labour Party. The eight Labour defectors left their party because it has been taken over by revolutionary Marxists and is rife with anti-Semitism. Those are serious issues, much more so than flouncing out of the Tory Party over a “people’s vote”, but the waters have now been muddied.

Momentum propagandists will have a field day denouncing The Independent Group as a bunch of Tories. Every lazy or cowardly Labour MP who was tentatively considering joining the rebellion now has an excuse to stay put: “I can’t share an agenda with Tories and join them in attacking The Party We Love.” In Labour tradition such an ideological antipathy runs deep. Historically, the SDP allied itself with the Liberals, but it enrolled no Conservative MPs.

The Conservative component in The Independent Group can only be an embarrassment and discouragement to Labour rebels. Significantly, Ian Austin, the latest Labour defector, has refused to join TIG.

Heidi Allen, at the Tory defectors’ press conference, declared: “I’m excited.” So was Shirley Williams in her day. This is not a seismic moment in party politics. Such a moment, however, could come, if Brexit is betrayed on 29 March and a mass movement, supported by Nigel Farage, is launched to sweep away the legacy parties. Meanwhile, Anna and the Soubrettes are more like a revival of opera buffa.