Hang on, I thought the Conservatives had received such a ruthless drubbing in the last election because they had ceased to be recognisably conservative?
I was under the impression that with taxes, immigration and public spending at bewildering highs and patriotism and defence spending at rock bottom, what the Tory legacy said to voters was this: We’re just as awful as the other lot, so you might as well give them a go?
It had seemed to me that as she rose from the steaming wreckage, the Herculean task facing Kemi Badenoch was as difficult as it was simple: to convince the public that the flaccid libdemmery of the past 14 years was firmly in the past, while continuing to rely upon the very people who had helped squander that inheritance in the first place? To make the beleaguered Conservatives conservative, in other words? Or what was left of them?
More fool me. According to more than a dozen Tory MPs and peers, the real problem with the Conservative Party is that it wasn’t pro-Palestine enough.
At least, that was the impression they gave yesterday when this motley crew of rebels broke ranks to write to Sir Keir Starmer expressing support for unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state, then leaked the letter to the Guardian.
How Badenoch’s heart must have lifted. That should help in the struggle against Reform, eh? To add insult to injury, Sir Keir didn’t bother to reply.
To most Conservative voters, there are few gestures less conservative than lending support to the tinpot autocrats who for as long as anybody could remember have been big on incitement and short on peace.
Yes, Mahmoud Abbas, I’m looking at you: the Soviet ally who completed a PhD in Holocaust revisionism at the Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow (and quite possibly, according to claims in the New York Times, worked for the KGB) before becoming a PLO activist, demanding the deportation of Jews to Arab lands, winning the Palestinian presidency, losing an election to Hamas, gaining power anyway and stretching his four-year term for more than two decades.
The corruption of the Palestinian leadership is well-known. Until this week, the only people willing to tie themselves to the mast for that lot were keffiyeh-clad idiots on university campuses, Gaza Independents and the nuttier fringes of the left. Yet this was the very outfit that the Tory rebels looked upon this week and thought: Oh, how the shires will love this.
Ever since the Cold War, when the Palestinian cause was embraced by the Kremlin and pushed around the world via the Soviet propaganda machine to the likes of Jeremy Corbyn and Seamus Milne, it has been a thoroughly leftwing affair.
Most natural conservatives hold an instinctive support for Israel, understanding that for all its faults, a democratic ally is preferable to a leadership composed of a bunch of terrorists, autocrats and tribal clans.
Not so, however, Kit Malthouse, the Tory MP for Northwest Hampshire, who abandoned his hard-won reputation for compromise to organise this shameful, anti-Israel manoeuvre. To be fair to him, Malthouse has not always displayed the most astute political instincts; in 2022, on the very day received a £2,212 pay rise to his £115,000 salary, he complained that the cost of living crisis was “tricky” for his family, just as less well-off households faced a £1,600 increase in their bills.
What does Malthouse know about Israel? Not very much, his latest actions suggest. Living in Winchester, I know his patch rather well. Andover pubs and market stalls have fought back against persistent Palestine protests by flying the Israeli flag. You want to take notice of your constituents, Mr Malthouse. Perhaps they could teach you a thing or two.
Also signing the letter was “serial rebel” Sir Edward Leigh, MP for Gainsborough and one of a tiny number of parliamentary members of the Conservative Friends of Palestine, who in February pleaded guilty to a charge of opening a vehicle door so as to injure or endanger a person, in this case a passing police officer.
Then there was North Dorset MP Simon Hoare, who has attracted attention by way of “intemperate language and Twitter outbursts” and has admitted “honest mistakes” with regard to claiming his parliamentary expenses. I know. The quality of these people.
As for the contingent from our esteemed friends in the Lords, the charge was led by Nicholas Soames, whom I believe has something to do with Winston Churchill. I wonder what the Greatest Briton would have made of his grandson’s Palestine letter? Given that on a visit to Jerusalem in 1921, said that “it is manifestly right that the Jews, who are scattered all over the world, should have a national centre and a national home where some of them may be reunited. And where else could that be but in this land of Palestine, with which for more than three thousand years they have been intimately and profoundly associated?”, I think he may have taken rather a dim view of it.
To put this in perspective, my favourite Soames story dates back to 2017, when he responded to a parliamentary question by the Scottish MP Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh by barking like a dog. The Speaker, who at the time was John Bercow, called proceedings to a halt and reprimanded Soames, describing the barking as “discourteous”. Soames apologised, explaining that he was only expressing a “friendly canine salute” after Ahmed-Sheikh had “snapped” her question. How proud Churchill would have been!
He would have been equally proud of the whole shower, in fact. What this Palestine letter amounts to is a picture of the parlous state of the current Conservative Party. I’d suggest that Badenoch sling the lot of them out, but with just 120-odd MPs, she needs every man she’s got. Which illustrates the heart of the problem. The Tories’ worst enemy is themselves.
