Kemi and the Crewkerne debacle

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0:37Hello and welcome to Coffeehouse Shots, the spectator's daily politics podcast. I'm Natasha Froese and I'm delighted to be joined today by William Atkinson and Paul Goodman, who is the Conservative peer and former editor of Conservative Home. Now, I thought today we would discuss a topic that has been in the news, but we haven't mentioned on Coffeehouse Shots yet. and it's Kemi Badenok's selection process. She controversially decided to allow a former neo-Nazi to remain in the party and has given this man a role as an advisor. Joshua Bonehill-Payne was previously jailed for harassing the Jewish MP Luciana Berger, but Kemi Badenok has defended her decision by saying he's been rehabilitated and the party believes in second chances.

1:23Now, Paul, I thought I'd go to you first. It is slightly complicated, but what did you make of the story overall? So first of all, this character, Joshua, is a very strong supporter of Kelly Bagnon and a maker of AI videos on the net supporting her, some of which are very funny, some of which are quite close to the line. That's his recent output, as it were, after his kind of neo-Nazi period. I've read his blog where he explains how he became a neo-Nazi and how he got out of it. And it is completely convincing. And any decent person would think that he should be given a second chance. The problem really here is this, which I think he's recognised, if actually by standing down, before you make the leap of being a council candidate, having been a former neo-Nazi in a field actually with all sorts of former people with outrageous records of council candidates, You've really sort of got to make your peace with the people you've offended.

2:20And he didn't make his peace, for better or worse, with Luciana Berger. It's complicated by the fact that Luciana Berger, who he abused and called a rodent and said absurdly, terrifying things, is a member of the Labour Party. So she's not going to be kind of rushing back when to forgive Joshua. But all things considered, I think that were he able to make his peace with the Jewish community? some members of which, like Gideon Fulter of the campaign against anti-Semites, would be more receptive to him, then it would be fine. Just a very simple political point about all this. Kemi Beignot really, really, really does not want to get into a row with the Jewish community about this.

2:58And I'm sure that is why Joshua stepped back from being a Conservative candidate and the whole business has now been smoothed over. I hope one day that he is able to come back in some form. You do. And William, do you agree? And Kemi could have really made her life a lot easier by not letting him into the party, couldn't she? Quite. I think it is very much a distinction between the personal case of Joshua and the political environment in which Kemi Vedenoch is operating. I think there is actually something quite noble about giving somebody like Joshua a second chance, who did something so hideous and who has been on, you know, slightly trite phrase, but nonetheless on a journey.

3:36He went to prison, he sort of befriended Jewish around there. He realised just how hideous his views have become. And he's worked subsequently across schools and elsewhere to campaign against anti-Semitism and to raise awareness. And I think his actual journey is one that's actually something quite inspiring in a sense, but also a genuine one, as Paul suggests. But I think one has to be quite hard-headed with these sort of things. And that even if he is a reformed neo-Nazi who is now doing his best to reach out to the Jewish community, as soon as you have the words former neo-nazi ahead of a sort of council candidate that's going to be the thing that ends up on all of the all of the front pages and so ultimately while i i can appreciate can we made an ox attempt to bring him back into the fold i do think this was a wasted endeavor and i must you know very unusual um for me to do this but i must disagree with paul on one point i must say i find the crew can gazette videos incredibly tedious and uh you know as no great fan of ai slop the idea that this was a man who was considered to be a leading intellectual within the Conservative Party and its future was itself perhaps reflections the the depths that it sunk but I think it's also one of a subsequent matter you know Kemi should have been a bit more honest about you know the fact that she had seen these videos you know because I think in a particular interview yesterday she denied having seen them or knowing who this man was you know she should actually sort of stand up for him she should also stand up for and be honest about the job that local councillors do because I think as well she said it was fine for him to stand as a councillor because that was different from being an MP because they're only dealing with the bins and I think that's what a way to sort of demoralise the few conservative councillors who are left or those who would consider standing as a council candidate in future.

5:06Yeah, that didn't go down well. Paul, the Tory party has had to change a lot since the last 14 years. Kemi's on a big rebranding journey. So you can understand why she's, you know, really gutting it, getting rid of certain people. Could you talk a little bit about the membership and what they are like, what's left of them, what they believe in? I think you'd think it's a funny old world in which you can have, for no matter what, a council candidate who was a new Nazi. Grant Shapps, who has been chairman of the party, who has been Home Secretary, even if it was only for about 30 seconds, who's been Defence Secretary, who's had a whole series of senior roles, can't be a Conservative candidate.

5:48and when Kelly Bagnot was asked about this she obviously refused to comment on his particular case but then made it very clear that you know she wants a new party, new candidates so I think it's worth thinking about this quite a bit and I'm struck by several things first of all for all Grannot Shapps' seniority but for all the fact he formed this organisation called Conservatives Together to get former candidates together there has been no demonstrations in favour of Grannot Shapps As far as I know, the membership have not marched on CCHQ, demanding he be reinstated. There's been absolute radio silence.

6:24It's really interesting. The second thing is that this is not new. I mean, leaders are always trying to purge the candidates list. You know, David Cameron has brought him the famous and rather misunderstood A-list to change the candidates list. Ted Heath back in the 1970s tried to get Harvey Proctor, a well-known right winger. This has been going on for an enormously long time. The difference is all about the question you asked, which is about the membership. And James Heal does a very good job in his column this week of describing the strengths and the weaknesses. I mean, the bits of southwest London or West London where William and I knock around, the Conservative Party is not doing so badly.

7:06You know, it took Westminster Council back in the local elections, got control of Wandsworth. If you are a young man who believes in the free market working in the private sector in London, there's a chance you'll be conservative and even a conservative activist. But in the rest of the country, make no mistake, you'll be honest, it's a shell. You know, it's not a national party because there aren't any national parties anymore. Labour are no better off in parts of the South, to now, you know, given Andy Burton's Northern Act. The Liberal Democrats are not a national party. Reform don't really have members.

7:42So consequently, can we be not, is able to do this? But over it, I think there hangs a question. And the question is, if you were, as it were, Tavares Grant Shapps, you'd be looking at all this and thinking hang on a sec is this really worth the candle you know i'm going to go in i'm going to do my best i could be ruthlessly purged while i'm there i'm running the risk of all these rules and regulations in parliament that i don't understand i'm not going to be able to to earn it's one less reason to go and i think leaders of the conservative party are a less strong position just to conclude the casual reading of james's column might suggest because they are basically like Turkish sultans in about 1760.

8:25While you are the sultan, you have absolute power, but you're only the sultan as long as you deliver. And if you're not the sultan, if you don't deliver, if you're Rishi Sunak, if you're Liz Truss, if you're Boris Johnson, if you're Theresa May, if you're almost any of them, you are out. And the Janissaries will put in someone else. And that, of course, is the threat chewing over the head of Kimi Baden-Walk that she makes these sweeping reforms to candidate selection. William, what do you think about the membership? Well, I think it's an interesting question to ask is whether the Conservative Party has become more of a cult of personality than Reform UK.

8:59With Robert Jenrick's departure in January, there's no obvious threat can be made within the Conservative Party. You know, aside from, say, somebody like Katie Lamb, you'd expect she's probably two or three years off being able to stage a leadership challenge. I think it's interesting, as Paul points out, the Conservative Party has basically become a regional party. But because that region is basically the wealthy South and Southeast, the sort of place that sort of had a lot of Conservatives anyway, and in which most people who then report on the Conservative Party hang out, it therefore becomes much more difficult to get it into people's heads that the Conservative Party is no longer sort of challenging for government as it might once have done.

9:33But you see what with the great Manchester mayoralty by-election last week, the Conservative Party came in fifth behind both Reform UK and Restore Britain. And I think the Conservative Party's best chance of relevance going forward essentially means trying to win back those seats lost to the Lib Dems in 2024. And, you know, wealthy places like, say, Henley or Stratford-upon-Avon, which, you know, on paper should be Conservative, but were so fed up after 14 years of Tory rule that they went over to the Lib Dems. And especially if Ed Doovey continues to sort of follow along in Andy Burnham's trail, that might be quite easy.

10:06But in terms of the membership, I think they're very sold on Kemi. You know, Conservative Home, both of our former employers do this monthly poll of the popularity of the Shadow Cabinet. And Kemi sort of tops it with, you know, almost Saddam Hussein-esque numbers, you know, with alarming regularity. And so I think she's got an awful lot of bandwidth within the party to try and make these sort of sweeping reforms. But it does make me quite worried if the Conservative Party is sort of losing its ability to have people from not only different factions across the party, but who are able to be sort of critical of the leader.

10:38Because especially when you have only 120 odd MPs and you exist in a media environment where the vast majority of attention is not on you, it's on the government or on reform or all the rest. You know, you end up essentially in an echo chamber. And I think increasingly in those of us who are cursed to cover Conservative politics or work broadly within it. But, you know, Kemi has very much fallen prey to that over the last year or so. Just one point in case anyone thinks that the spec or William and I as ex-Conservative homeowners are obsessed with the Conservative Party. It's just worth saying all the main parties are in a situation that's rather like this.

11:13And naturally, the spectator takes an interest in Conservative Party selections. And sure it should. But you put Tory selections, which are highly centralised, it's true, compared to the Labour selections. I mean, Labour selections are an absolute scandal. I mean, they are like England in the pre-1832 Reform Act. People are literally parachuted individually into seats. You don't really even seem to get a chance of free. And, you know, I would just ask the question of how someone like Torsten Bell turns up somewhere in Wales with which he leaves apparently hand. and no very strong former connection.

11:52It is happening to all the parties. So there's actually a big question here about the future of political parties themselves. And I can't help thinking that some of the new ones, like Restore, and I've tried to get into this a bit from time to time, rather than be outraged about Restore, I think we should be a bit cool. I think they're a money-making operation. I think, you know, Rupert Lowe makes whatever he makes out of being on X a year. I think some of these younger bloggers, they've got their YouTube platforms to sustain. And there is a really big question about politics, which is, is politics now actually about governing and delivering anything?

12:27Or is it about being a critic and watching the money roll in for your sub stack, for your YouTube channel, for your blog, for your whatever? I mean, something that we always used to talk about at Conservative Home and more widely was the idea that we exist within the right wing entertainment industry rather than, as you say, a practical series of organisations across political parties, newspapers, magazines, think tanks, etc. Aiming to try and change the country in a Conservative with a big and small C direction. And I think, you know, I was at the CPAC conference, for example, a few weeks ago, and I just found it absolutely abhorrent because, you know, these are people who were led by a former prime minister and the figure of Liz Truss, who were trying to position themselves as those who are sort of thought leaders on the right.

13:13And it was a series of, you know, bizarre Americans. It was a series of sort of would be shock jocks, etc. You know, with no sort of an awful lot of heat, but not a lot of light actually generated. But the thing is, is that if I think about Conservative Party members, if I think about people who would be voting for reform and more widely, they're far more likely to see a clip from that than they are to see a Conservative Party policy document. And that makes me quite worried, really, because rather than have, you know, people who are sort of who who are outside of politics, who are working in, say, the city or finance more broadly or have been successful business people who would have traditionally thought the Conservative Party is the vehicle by which I can get into Parliament, you know, having had a successful private sector career and I can try and change Britain and direction, which, you know, I approve of.

13:55they will see horror shows like that and they will be put off going into politics entirely. And that's, you know, when politics is already so denuded of talent, you know, only creates a sort of doom loop that allows the country to sink ever further into the sea. I mean, just last on Kimmy Badenock, as we started with Kimmy Badenock, so we might as well finish with Kimmy Badenock. You've got to think, given this landscape that William and I are trying to describe, and given the legacy that she was handed. I'm saying this to somebody who didn't vote at the Conservative leadership election so I've got a fish to fry she's really done pretty well in being able to maintain any kind of Conservative presence at all and I think there's just a chance that she's going to escape my Conservative sultan rule in that first of all there's a question about come on would anybody really seriously be doing any better ask the question so many of us probably no second if she can actually increase the number of Tory seats which I think is the is the real challenge she might even be the unusual position of political leaders in these days of being able not to win a general election but to hang on very interesting thank you Paul thank you William and thank you for listening to Coffeehouse Shots

15:19Thank you.

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