Rebecca McQuillan: Tories are more adept at reinvention than Madonna but their troubles aren't over

But for a party that is more adept at reinvention than Madonna, nothing can be ruled out – this in spite of the fist-gnawingly awkward spectacle of the past few days.

Many an eyebrow has been raised at the resignation epistles of several dozen ministers, alluding repeatedly to their injured “consciences” and sense of “integrity”, in spite of having stood by the Prime Minister through scandals aplenty.

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Michelle Donelan opined that she was “someone who values integrity above all else” as she resigned from the post of education secretary, two days after accepting it from the Prime Minister whose behaviour she so deplored.

Journalist Rachel Sylvester’s assessment that former health secretary Sajid Javid and former Chancellor Rishi Sunak had an advantage in the forthcoming leadership contest because they had “gone early” on the “argument of integrity”, seems doubtful.

The idea that they went “early” will cut little ice with long term critics of Johnson within the Conservative party. They feel that Mr Johnson’s flaws, like the Great Wall of China, are so hefty that you can see them from space and so ancient that they’ve been apparent since long before he became Prime Minister.

There is no doubt that ministers and MPs have been squirming in discomfort for months at their leader’s dishonesty, but they didn’t leave government over it. Why not? Because MPs go into parliament to get things done and an ambitious minister does not relinquish his or her grip on the despatch box just because their conscience is stinging a bit.

What changed this week was that self-interest and conscience finally aligned for dozens of them: they judged that Boris Johnson was not going to change and had become an implacable threat to their careers, just as he had become a threat to Tory MPs’ re-election chances. Now was the time to go.

He did little to quell their ire with his resignation speech. Its populist Trumpian flavour was unmistakeable: conceding-but-not-conceding, announcing defiantly that he would hold on for months; referring once again to his supposed mandate, as if the views of parliamentarians in a parliamentary democracy do not count; showing no contrition, far less apologising; and blaming his colleagues’ “herd instinct” for his political demise, as if he could not conceive of any other rational reason for their actions.

But this too shall pass. By the autumn, perhaps sooner, he will be gone.

So what does all this mean for 2024?

The Tories chances of winning the next election will likely increase, at least to begin with, simply by dint of the fact that the new leader is not Boris Johnson. (In spite of the PM’s fond imagining that the country is still with him personally, the polls show unmistakeably that it isn’t; this is one mistress who has kicked him out of bed.)

The Scottish Tories in particular will be sleeping more soundly at night, the “arse” (to reference the Scottish Tories’ anti-Boris codeword adopted in 2018) having finally waddled off.

But the new Conservative leader, whoever that may be, may struggle to shake off the taint of the Johnson years with the general public. We don’t yet know if the leadership contest rules this time will narrow the usually packed field, which allows unknowns and ministerial virgins to progress, but either way former Johnson ministers will likely dominate. Javid, Truss, Sunak, Zahawi and Wallace all look like probable contenders.

It might be difficult for these Johnson acolytes to convince voters that they’re nothing like their former boss – not least because opposition MPs won’t let them.

We’ve already seen how it will play out, with Keir Starmer preparing the ground for months, often training his fire on the cabinet for enabling Johnson rather than attacking Johnson himself. Labour obviously see broadbrush accusations of sleaze and guilt-by-association as a winner, though they’ll have to work hard to make that bite if the Johnsonian stream of scandal dries up.

Brexit is another pitfall, with the new Tory leader likely to be a confirmed Brexiteer. The 2016 referendum divided the country and Boris Johnson’s election-winning strategy in 2019 was to appeal only to the Brexit-supporting half of it.

Since then, however, the public has lost what enthusiasm it had for Brexit, with a clear and consistent majority now believing that it has damaged Britain.

But Conservative Party members, a wholly unrepresentative group of less than 200,000 people, are still gung ho for it and look likely to install a Prime Minister who promises to take a tough line on the EU, when voters would prefer a more constructive approach. This poses a real risk for the Tories, particularly in seats where the Lib Dems are challenging them.

Even cutting taxes is not a surefire vote winner at a time when public services are struggling and public servants underpaid.

Meanwhile, Labour is carefully defining its own, alternative pitch for 2024. As Starmer showed with his announcement last week that he would not seek to re-enter the EU, he intends to avoid bear-traps. He and his deputy have also received a timely boost with news that they have been cleared of breaking lockdown rules, pointing up the contrast between them and the Conservatives.

What of Scottish independence? Does Johnson’s departure make it harder to persuade Scottish voters they should opt to leave the UK? Perhaps a bit, but any Conservative government will turn off Scots in their droves. What could change things is Labour opening up a decisive lead over the Tories by early 2024 but there’s no guarantee of that, with so much political sludge to pass under the bridge before then.

Perhaps we will not have to wait until 2024. Perhaps, as in 2019, the new Tory leader will call a general election, but more likely they’ll want to hold it off as long as possible. They’ll certainly be aware that getting rid of Boris Johnson hasn’t ended the Tories’ troubles.

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