“You put your left leg in, your left leg out,
In out, in out, shake it all about.
You do the hokey-cokey and you turn around.
That’s what it’s all about!”
As some frustrated seeker after wisdom once asked: “But what if the hokey cokey really is what it’s all about?
I found myself pondering the same question in reviewing Rishi Sunak’s cabinet reshuffle. What is it all about? There seems no obvious plan, except a desperate attempt at survival. All things considered, doing the hokey-cokey might look like a sound – and in the circumstances shrewd – strategy.
What are we to make of the direction intended for the new cabinet? What will be its policies and to achieve which objectives, except survival? We were told that Sunak was unwilling to sack Braverman as she promoted increasingly brutal and aggressive policies, because she represented the powerful right wing of his party. But then, when he was faced with no choice and sacked her, she went with hardly a whimper.
A good night for Tory right-wingers to wash their hair
This writer assumed that meant she was choosing her moment, and yesterday afternoon she released a letter to Sunak in response.
But releasing a letter on Twitter isn’t quite the bombardment that brings down governments. In the two days since her defenestration, there has been scarcely a peep from her backers. They were “50 to 60 MPs strong” was the boast over the weekend. Then immediately after the deed, that figure had become 70 to 80 – that’s Sunak’s majority gone. Only, those supporters met Monday night to plot.
Now there is no sieve so leaky as a Tory backbencher, and usually chapter and verse of their meetings is in the hands of the nation’s news editors before the participants have even repaired to the bar. Yet there is no news of what happened, not so much as a whisper about their plans for a Braverman putsch against Sunak.
A reporter asked Lee Anderson “May we have a word, please,” as he left the meeting. “I’ll give you two,” he said, and strode off. Somebody claimed they heard that many of these 70 or 80 right wing warriors must have been washing their hair that evening: only 20 turned up. Somebody else claimed seven. Seven. Was it true? Who knows, because not one of them, however many, has said a word. And the problem is, unless Braverman makes her bold statement of rebuttal in the next 24 hours she will be old news. The public will have moved on.
Does Cleverly really want to stop the boats?
So Sunak was afraid of the bogey man; only it turns out the bogey man might not exist. The right-wing threat seems – for the moment at least – to have fizzled out.
Where does that leave the government? Let us not deceive ourselves: it is still a hard right-wing administration under the putative command of a bone dry Thatcherite. But there seems little doubt that it has taken a sharp turn… well, if not quite towards moderation, then at least away from lunacy. In out, in out, shake it all about.
As to ‘stopping the boats’, new home secretary James Cleverly declares himself an enthusiastic supporter, though he may have misgivings already. He made the statement immediately after his appointment, words he assumed would appear emollient to that right-wing. Only there is no obvious right-wing backlash and Cleverly is now stuck with them. He must know the plan can’t work, but if he backs down now, that’s another policy disaster area.
Old Etonian toff schmoozing johnny foreigner
Most attention though was understandably drawn to the appointment of David – now Lord – Cameron as foreign secretary.
There was the predictable response among the commentariat about “safe pair of hands”, “experience of world affairs” and so on. The Old Etonian toff schmoozing johnny foreigner again. But the two words which swiftly became the common description during his premiership among certainly EU diplomats and politicians, were ‘arrogance’ and ‘incompetence’. We may love toffs here, but elsewhere that upper class complacency doesn’t work.
What is supposed to be his purpose? From the outside, it looks as though he’s been brought on board to become prime minister in all but name, pulling Sunak’s chestnuts out of the fire, talking the talk and walking the walk where Sunak isn’t up to it. It’s doubtful whether Sunak had that in mind, but what did he expect? In cabinet, everybody will ignore Sunak’s opening and wait to see what Cameron has to say. Is it really intended to impress the EU? I will let a colleague better qualified than I am tell us what chances that has of success in his forthcoming article.
Arrogant and incompetent perhaps, but he was a Remainer
Most obviously though, Cameron was a Remainer, the ultimate treachery in today’s Tory party. Is even that part of Sunak’s thinking now? ‘You do the hokey-cokey and you turn around…’
No, it’s not, but Sunak will hope for something from the appointment, whatever it turns out to be. There are whispers that Sunak and his advisers have given up any intention of keeping the Red Wall votes, and instead are looking to mitigate their election destruction by winning back a few of those in the leafy shires. Though analysis of the Brexit vote in detail showed it wasn’t won by those working class Red Wall voters, as we were initially told, but by middle aged middle class white men. So they haven’t even got that right. Comparing their present attempt at strategy to headless chickens would appear to give perfectly blameless poultry a bad name.
But whilst we scrutinise every move for its underlying meaning, the truth is there is no underlying meaning, perhaps no meaning at all. Sunak is in a funk, and this week’s hokey-cokey is all that’s left to him.
