Outgoing defence secretary Ben Wallace and Rishi Sunak have had the standard exchange of resignation letters marking Wallace’s departure from government after nine years as a minister. The tone is respectful, statesmanlike and even warm in places.
Wallace writes: “The investment you made in Defence as Chancellor and the continued support you have shown as Prime Minister has been key to enabling the Ministry of Defence to deliver for Britain. I am personally very grateful for your leadership.”
He concludes: “Thank you for the support and your friendship. You and the Government will have my continued support.”
Sunak in reply is equally warm.
It’s almost as though not everything in politics is at it seems and they have negotiated a form of words which in public wraps things up politely, enabling the former defence secretary to go at the general election to the House of Lords.
Because the truth is that there is a long-running tension and enmity between the pair with its roots in Boris Johnson’s leadership of the Tories and his desperate attempts to regain power last autumn.
Ben Wallace was one of the first and main instigators of the campaign to make Boris Johnson leader of the Tories. He spotted in 2013 that Johnson had no friends, no operation, in parliament and would need one built. Through dinners and meetings, Wallace ran an underground “Boris for leader” group, on the basis that Johnson was deemed a winner.
They disagreed on Brexit and were on different sides in the referendum. Straight after the vote, the Johnson-Wallace working relationship resumed. Wallace became campaign manager, though was joined by the Gove-ites who promptly blew up Boris.
Fast forward three years, May has fallen. Boris becomes PM. All sorts of other people were tipped for defence secretary when Johnson won the premiership in 2019, but it was always going to be his key ally Wallace.
Wallace at defence was a well-known Sunak sceptic. Chancellors and defence secretaries rarely have a good working relationship because the money man tends to be wary of the MoD’s ways and demands for cash. At that stage, defence and foreign affairs were not really Sunak’s area of interest (that has changed a lot).
Then Sunak helped bring down Johnson, although really Boris did it to himself. Wallace the Boris loyalist was under pressure to run himself, though he resisted for family reasons. Sunak could have tried to woo Wallace or do a deal, but there was no even vaguely friendly basis for such an undertaking.
When Sunak lost the contest to Truss, Wallace stayed in government. When Truss fell, Wallace said on TV he lent in the direction of a return of Johnson, fuelling Boris’s fire and infuriating the Sunak team who feared over a crazy weekend that Johnson would gain enough support to return.
Since Sunak became PM, the pair have kept their distance in public, though of course a defence secretary and PM are forced to interact in cabinet and committees. Perhaps a grudging respect of sorts has formed in the heat of the Ukraine war, about which Wallace was right way before it happened.
Or perhaps not. When Wallace announced in the summer that he was stepping down it blindsided Number 10, as did his withdrawal from the race to be Nato secretary general when he announced he had been done in by President Biden and then the incumbent at Nato had his term extended. It was a curious move by Wallace, as Biden himself may not be around for long or things could change in some other way. Stay on the pitch in politics, anything can happen.
Either way, this episode is a reminder that resignation letters are among the most insincere documents in politics. Wait for the memoirs and diaries, when both sides provide their versions of the truth.
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