James Cleverly MP: “People like the fact that Boris is taking action, making decisions and getting this done”
9 min read
It has been a tumultuous few weeks for the Government, but the Conservative party chairman refuses to let it dampen his enthusiasm. Before he heads to Manchester, James Cleverly talks to Kevin Schofield about Boris Johnson’s bounce back and why this conference will be the most engaging yet
It will be a Conservative conference like no other.
Delegates will gather in Manchester against a backdrop of unprecedented political and constitutional turmoil. And, following the ruling of 11 Supreme Court judges, it will take place while the House of Commons is sitting.
The court, as we all know, ruled that Boris Johnson’s prorogation of Parliament – which was meant to run until 14 October – was unlawful and that MPs could return to the Commons immediately. Unsurprisingly, the Speaker ensured they were sitting again 25 hours later.
Party chairman James Cleverly admits that will require some “juggling” by MPs forced to split their time between Westminster and the north-west, but insists the conference’s very existence was never in doubt.
“It is definitely happening,” he says as he sits in his small office tucked away in a corner of CCHQ. “We have got more people coming to conference than at any point in the last two decades.
“That is more members, more young members, more commercial sponsors - it is a bigger event than it has been in decades. And it’s worth remembering, of those many many thousands of people, at most a couple of hundred are members of Parliament. So conference is, and has always been, about more than just the Members of Parliament. This conference in particular, I was determined to make it much more of a members’ event, where they get to do interesting and meaningful stuff, they get to put forward ideas and feel properly connected with all sections of the party.
“It may well be that we MPs will have to do a bit of juggling, but the bottom line is conference is really really important. It’s an opportunity for the newest activists through to councillors, police and crime commissioners, mayors, MPs and others to all get together at the same time.
“I and everybody else will have to adapt to circumstances in Westminster, but the priority is to make sure that we get time to interact with our wider membership.”
Several times during our conversation, Cleverly stresses the need for conference to be more “interactive” than it has been in the past. He refuses to say precisely what that means, but it definitely sounds as though there will be fewer lengthy speeches to a half-empty hall by Cabinet ministers.
“I was always determined to make it feel different,” he says. “We had a really good vibe going through the leadership hustings. They were a series of events that our members felt really engaged them and I’m determined to make sure that vibe continues into conference - to make it interactive, exciting and member-led.”
Cleverly adds: “There will be some set-piece speeches but there will be more interactive elements. I don’t want to give away all our big surprises, but it’s going to feel different
“It’s not just going to be senior politicians gripping the side of a lectern giving a half hour speech. There is a place for that in politics, but the lesson that we learned from the leadership hustings is shorter, punchier speeches allied to more interactive elements goes together well.”
Cleverly is also determined that the four-day gathering should not be dominated by Brexit. Instead, with a general election looming, he says the party wants to prove to voters that it has clear plans for life after the UK leaves the European Union.
He says: “There will of course be debate about Brexit because it’s a big issue. But out and around the country, when I talk to people in all parts of the UK, the message I get back is Brexit is important, but so is crime and policing, so is hospitals, so are schools, the economy, transport and broadband.
“In Westminster it’s all ‘Brexit Brexit Brexit’, but on doorsteps – I was on the tip of Cornwall last week and I’ve been up to Scotland – people want to talk about stuff that affects their everyday lives, and having everyone in Westminster reminded of that is no bad thing.”
As I sat in the CCHQ reception ahead of the interview, the BBC News Channel was showing live footage of Boris Johnson arriving back at Heathrow, having been forced by the Supreme Court ruling to cut short his trip to New York for the UN General Assembly.
In a barbed reference to the judges’ decision, one Westminster wag immediately tweeted “The Illegal Has Landed”.
How can the Conservatives go into the next election, I suggest, as the party of law and order when the prime minister himself cannot abide by Acts of Parliament?
“That’s something that happens a lot,” Cleverly insists. “Judicial reviews into the actions of public bodies happen. The implication that it’s something else is wrong.
“The bottom line is the legal advice that the prime minister acted upon gave him the confidence that he was acting appropriately. The decisions of various levels of the judiciary supported that decision, the Supreme Court disagreed. It’s disappointing and you deal with it.”
The Tories may also find it difficult to attack Jeremy Corbyn for not singing the national anthem when their own leader may have misled the Queen over the real reasons for proroguing Parliament. Does Cleverly not think Johnson owes the monarch an apology?
“I’m not privy to conversations that the prime minister has with Her Majesty, but the prime minister believed that he was acting appropriately, made the decisions he made, and the fact the Supreme Court disagrees with that is disappointing, but we deal with it.”
Despite Cleverly’s apparent equanimity, there is no doubt that Boris Johnson has probably had the worst start to a premiership than any of his predecessors. In just two months he has lost a by-election, a Cabinet minister, 21 of his MPs, his majority, six Commons votes and, finally, a landmark legal case.
Bizarrely, Michael Gove responded to the latest setback by insisting the prime minister was “a born winner” and comparing him with Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola.
While Cleverly – who served under him during his eight years as mayor of London – refuses to go that far, he insists that those currently writing the PM off do so at their peril.
He says: “I’ve been on the campaign trail with him twice when he was running for mayor and when he was running to be leader of the party. In all of those he was written off as someone who didn’t have a credible chance of winning and in all three of those things he won comprehensively.
“It goes back to that ‘in the bubble/out the bubble’ thing. All the sensible voices, all the well-informed Westminster soothsayers, were saying he’s got no chance. The bottom line is I’ve seen him have a very natural ear to the mood music of the city and of the country, and when I’m out and about, the things I hear people say are a reflection of what the prime minister is saying.
“We’ve spent years now going round in circles over Brexit, with Parliament demanding that we spend more time debating but preventing decisions being made and that’s the opposite of what the country wants. What the country wants is decisions being made and it’s clear to all the people in all parts of the UK that people like the fact that Boris is taking action, making decisions and getting this done. They also like the fact that he is talking about the stuff they are passionate about.
“There are millions of people in mature democracies who are shouting at their politicians ‘please will you listen to what we care about?’ and when politicians step up and say they will listen to their concerns, that’s when the electorate say ‘thank you - at last’.”
Having the final UK conference of the season allows Tory strategists to watch the Lib Dem and Labour gatherings and size up the opposition. It may not surprise you to learn that Cleverly was not terribly impressed with either of them.
If the Conservatives are to stand any chance of winning a decent majority at the next election, they will have to take seats from both parties while hanging on to the vast majority of what they already hold. With the Lib Dems in particular enjoying something of a renaissance, it could well be a tall order.
But Cleverly says that even in Remain-voting Tory/Liberal marginals, Jo Swinson’s pledge to revoke Article 50 is a guaranteed voter-repellant.
“My position is very clear - we don’t intend to cede any ground to the Lib Dems,” Cleverly says.
“I’ve been to Remain-voting constituencies and the message that the Lib Dems have put out, which is that they have decided to just ignore the outcome of the referendum and revoke Article 50.
“For people who believe in democracy, that is a really uncomfortable position for the Lib Dems to take. They’re saying ‘we had a referendum, we promised to abide by the result, we got a result we didn’t like, and we’ve decided to U-turn’. For a party that has a track record of U-turns, that’s not a good look.”
Cleverly is equally dismissive of Labour, whose conference last week began badly with a botched attempt to get rid of Tom Watson, got worse in the middle when their Brexit splits burst into the open, but ended on a high following the Supreme Court ruling.
The Tory chairman says the party’s promises of mass renationalisations and abolishing private schools are just “a microwaved version of the hard left 1970s Labour manifesto”.
“For the people who are looking backwards to what in political terms might have been a simpler time it was great, but for everybody else, what they saw was the party that is claiming to be ready to fight and win an election spectacularly fail to make a decision on one of the most important issues of the day,” he says.
“They managed to avert a public civil war between the leader and the deputy leader and we’re still seeing anti-semitic posters being put up outside Labour conference. It was by any objective yardstick a really bad conference for the Labour party, displaying they are absolutely not ready to be a party of government.
“They claim to want a general election and then they keep refusing to have one. They want to take control of the order paper and dictate to the government but they are unwilling to become the government, and people can see through it. Voters aren’t daft.”
Cleverly’s assessment of the public mood will soon be put to the test. He hopes that this week in Manchester will convince the country that the Tories are best placed to cope with the challenges which undoubtedly lie ahead.
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