In defence of Jacob Rees-Mogg
Have we hit Peak Mogg? Matt Chorley, the editor of The Times Red Box, thinks we have. In his latest morning email he offered evidence that the number of references to JRM in news stories has declined since February or something. Rees-Mogg is a fading novelty star that burned brightly but briefly, he said.
“Jacob is “Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen, Jane McDonald, Charlie Dimmock and Handy Andy and Jeremy from Airport and Maureen from Driving School and Nasty Nick from Big Brother. Never off our tellys, then gone… Perhaps Rees-Mogg has burnt out already. And we never did get to see him releasing his balls into Guinevere on The National Lottery Live.”
I rarely disagree with Matt Chorley’s analysis. And I have criticised Rees-Mogg myself on numerous occasions. In running the Tory Brexiteer trade union the ERG so hard (Jacob, not Matt) and pursuing an unrelenting line on Brexit – just leave now, there are no problems -he has opened himself to the charge of irresponsibility.
The Prime Minister’s patience snapped the other day in a meeting with the Moggster and other MPs. She gave him a right good talking to, apparently, when he said that the government would win a referendum on Irish unification if it came to that. Honestly, when you love Brexit so much that you’re gaming a Northern Ireland referendum (I mean, what could possibly go wrong?) shouldn’t you pause to think? And reflect on the need for compromise.
But it would be a mistake to write off JRM or see him as a flash in the pan celebrity pillock. He is in for the long haul and is going to be, I suspect, a serious player in Tory politics for the next two decades. To be a serious player he need never become leader himself. Tory moderates shudder at the thought and in a contest the Tory party in the Commons would set about locking him out of the final two that go to the membership in the country in a party leadership contest. He’ll still speak for a strand of Toryism, and he is perfectly capable of holding one or more of the great offices of state.
Rees-Mogg also demonstrated on the BBC Daily Politics recently when quizzed about his Catholicism that he is polite but deadly when puncturing progressive assumptions. He was asked if his Catholic views made him unsuitable and might put people off. Er… Catholic Emancipation was in 1829 when Catholics were finally allowed to play a full part in public life. If Catholic views are once again to be a bar to office, will the same test apply to Muslims or Anglicans? Or is this new test act to apply only to Catholics?
Rees-Mogg was clearly angry, but he kept his temper and defended religious tolerance with aplomb.
His approach to these encounters often elicits an extraordinary and positive reaction from voters outside the London bubble. On BBC Question Time when he speaks he is listened to. The audience seems to like his unpatronising style even if many do not approve of every one of his High Tory beliefs, although monarchy and patriotism in particular are very popular.
Rees-Mogg only turned 49 this week. There are twenty years at least of parliamentary life left in him, if he can hold his seat. Nothing is guaranteed in perpetuity, even in North East Somerset, but he has a majority of 10,235 and 53.6% of the vote and a national profile that should help.
All sorts of prominent figures have youthful wild periods, falling in with the wrong crowd, before going on to be Foreign Secretary or Chancellor. Rees-Mogg has been running with the ERG, but that can’t last for ever. Brexit is happening and there will be little mileage in 2025 in complaining that we must have Max Fac (the thing with cameras and drones) for customs. The world will have moved on and JRM will be part of what follows. Expect Rees-Mogg, along with Ruth Davidson, and Michael Gove, and a new generation of Tory MPs that span the Conservative ideological spectrum, to play leading roles. The Tory tribe should be a broad church.