Conservative Party
‘To Restore Trust, Rip Up the Astroturf’
The Right Honourable Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg is jolly cheesed off and thinks you should be too.
Sharing a clip of an interview with Zewditu Gebreyohanes, former director of the Restore Trust, on his GB News evening show on 23 January, he tweeted: “The National Trust regrettably dislikes our nation.”
In the excerpt, he expanded on the theme: “The National Trust is there to maintain great historic buildings, that were very often given to them by the families that built them and apart from everything else, it feels like slightly bad manners to trash the families who gave you these fantastic properties.”
His guest agreed. “We all want more history,” Gebreyohanes said. But “unfortunately this is very bad history; they’re not using historians they’re bringing in people like English academics... or people who are trendy for other reasons and bringing them in to front campaigns that are virtue signalling rather than anything else.”
For Gebreyohanes and Rees-Mogg (which sounds a bit like a forgotten 1960s folk duo) only a select group of ‘approved historians’ should be commenting. It is distasteful for anyone else to do so, let alone bring up uncomfortable truths about the powerful families that built great homes, on the basis that they altruistically gifted them to the National Trust.
Rees-Mogg is a historian. He studied the subject at Oxford University and got a 2:1 for his troubles. Gebreyohanes, with a degree in PPE, is (by her own definition) not. But her remarkable CV – which has seen her become a trustee of the V&A Museum (with Boris Johnson’s backing) as well as an editor at History Reclaimed, and a director at Restore Trust, all by the time she is 25 – perhaps more than makes up for that.
Despite having written two books on the subject, I make no claim to be an academic or a historian. But despite that, I am happy to say that, in my opinion, they’re both talking agenda-driven balls. Here’s why.
Twisting History
For most of the 20th Century, the popular narrative of British history was in the hands of a tiny elite.
In school textbooks and popular histories, it propagated the notion that ‘our’ Empire (unlike others) was broadly a good thing; that the British people had an exceptional and indomitable ‘spirit’; that our history was more interesting than everyone else’s; and that even when this country did bad things, they were somehow good – because we always redeemed ourselves by later putting it right.
So, for example, while Britain did participate in enslaving millions of people, the slate was later wiped clean when ‘we’ magnanimously abolished it and played ‘our’ part in ending the trade altogether.
It’s an attitude that has informed many a contemporary ‘Hannanist’ worldview and is something I have previously dubbed ‘Ladybird Libertarianism’: a bowdlerised view of the past with all the horrid bits edited out.
British history served up as a nice, neat, ordered state of affairs, peppered with benign monarchs, great men, a tiny handful of women, and millions of grateful serfs (sorry ‘subjects’) – who every now and then were sent off to willingly die for the vested interests of the establishment.
Like so much other self-reinforcing propaganda, it served as an attractive myth and one which Britons largely bought into. But, from the 1960s onwards, that narrative began to be challenged in books, television documentaries and school curriculums – and with it came a growing interest in the facts over the imperialist fantasy.
As the sands shifted, the old guard began to organise. With the dawn of the 21st Century, the fight-back came.
In 2007, the think tank Civitas republished 'Our Island Story’, an Edwardian children’s book written by HE Marshall, which told a decidedly Anglocentric, patrician, and (in its view) a very attractive version of British history. Having done so, it started a campaign to get a copy into every school in the land.
The ‘Our Island Story’ movement was highly successful and, with the Telegraph’s backing, Civitas managed to get all sorts of endorsements from leading politicians, including David Cameron who proclaimed it his "favourite childhood book" in 2010.
Retrospectively, that moment saw the first shots fired in the British 'culture war' but crucially – in 2010 – very few people seemed to have noticed the agenda.
Igniting the Great Culture War
That changed with Brexit. And when in 2020 the National Trust published a landmark report into ‘Colonialism and Historic Slavery’, the phoney culture war ended – and the real conflict began.
That report, published in the immediate wake of the Black Lives Matter demonstrations and the felling of the Colston statue in Bristol, seems to have triggered the Ladybird Libertarians who have been howling with outrage ever since.
In the past five years, a series of ‘grassroots’ organisations – including the Save Our Statues campaign, History Reclaimed, its precursor History Matters (set up by Policy Exchange), and of course Restore Trust – have all gone into battle, with many of the same personnel dotting their ‘who are we’ pages.
Like its forerunners, and despite its protestations that it is simply run by ‘concerned’ National Trust members, Restore Trust has some very powerful friends indeed. Byline Times and the Bylines Network, as well as the Good Law Project, have done good work in exposing the links. But suffice to say, Restore Trust is no more a grassroots organisation than I’m Winston Churchill’s fictional swearing parrot.
And it clearly has some significant resources to pull on. It was telling, for example, that until a few months ago, its X (formerly Twitter) account sported a gold checkmark, at the eye-watering cost of £950 a month. Show me another grassroots movement that could afford that.
Its proposed members for the National Trust board have not exactly been ordinary folk off the Clapham Omnibus either. They have included former Supreme Court Judge Lord Sumption, ‘socialite’ Lady Violet Manners, Boris Johnson’s biographer Andrew Gimson, and historian Dr Zareer Masani.
In Facebook ads by a group calling itself Respect Britain’s Heritage – the website of which links back to Restore Trust – Nigel Farage and Jacob Rees-Mogg have lent their support.
In the press, it has been able to call on the help of Lord Charles Moore, who was ennobled by Boris Johnson, and Oldie Editor Harry Mount – who once wrote a book entitled The Wit and Wisdom of Boris Johnson. And of course, GB News has been hugely supportive of its efforts – that's the GB News co-owned by the Legatum Institute which now employs a certain Zewditu Gebreyohanes.
Depressed? Well, you shouldn’t be because, for once, this is a good news story. The old consensus that organisations like the National Trust or the RNLI should simply ‘take it’ has shifted. The National Trust, led by director of communications Celia Richardson, has fought back against the group and done so very effectively. For the moment, the cynical attempts at entryism have been successfully fended off.
There are two lessons here and ones which we should all take to heart. Firstly, we all ignore the sneaky forces of astroturfery at our peril. Secondly, it is not only possible to fight back – but even to win.
Dark Money Lobby Group Denies Sponsoring Liz Truss ‘PopCon’ Platform Set Up by Former Director
The new “Popular Conservativism” (“PopCon”) initiative launched in recent weeks abruptly deleted Conservative MPs Liz Truss, Simon Clarke, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Ranil Jayawardena from its website in response to an investigation by Byline Times exposing its ties to a dark money lobby group linked to climate denialism, scientific racism, and free market extremism.
The initiative has been attributed to the emergence of a splinter faction of Conservative Party members led by Liz Truss, the shortest-serving prime minister in British history. A member of the faction, Simon Clarke MP, published a controversial column in the Telegraph on Wednesday demanding that the party replace Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
Byline Times can confirm that the Popular Conservativism website, www.popularconservatism.com, was registered on 14 November last year by a private limited company, Popular Development Partners Limited, whose director is Mark Littlewood. Just months earlier Littlewood had stepped down as Director General of the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA). However, Littlewood remains affiliated with the IEA as Senior Economics Fellow.
The IEA is a dark money lobby group which refuses to fully disclose its sources of funding, but which regularly campaigns for a form of free market extremism that culminated in the failed ‘Trussonomics’ agenda in 2022.
A previous investigation by Byline Times revealed that the IEA played a key role in mainstreaming the figure of Charles Murray, a notorious scientific racist who claims that black people have lower IQs than white people due to genetic inferiority. The IEA also has an alarming track record of climate science denialism, and is part of a network of opaque hard right think tanks in the UK which have received millions in ‘dark money’ donations from American donors. Other confirmed funders include BP and gambling interests.
The group also has close ties with climate-denying alt-right libertarian groups which are supportive of former US President Donald Trump.
A spokesperson for the IEA said: “Popular Conservatism is not sponsored, funded or controlled by the IEA. To suggest otherwise is entirely false.”
Minutes after sending this statement, the Popular Conservativism website was temporarily deleted. When it was republished, the names and images of Truss, Rees-Mogg, Clarke and Jayawardena - identifies as speakers for a forthcoming launch event on 6 February - had been deleted.
Neither Mark Littlewood nor any of the Conservative MPs linked to the ‘PopCon’ faction and slated to speak at a forthcoming launch event – including Liz Truss and her former ministers Simon Clarke, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Ranil Jayawardena – responded to requests for comment.
This article was updated on 25 January 2024 to clarify that www.popularconservatism.com had been temporarily suspended following inquiries from Byline Times, after which Truss, Clarke, Rees-Mogg and Jayawardena were deleted from the website.
Rishi Sunak Stumbles as he Takes the Knee to the Culture Warriors
There was a curious moment at today’s Prime Minister’s Questions when Rishi Sunak appeared to suggest that Keir Starmer’s decision to publicly show solidarity with black victims of racism was somehow unBritish.
“He [Starmer] talks about what… Britain values. This from a man who takes the knee", Sunak told the chamber.
The implication here was that Starmer’s decision a few years ago to show solidarity with Black Lives Matter’ protesters by taking the knee somehow put him out of step with ‘British values’.
It’s unclear why this should be the case, given that at the time of the protests, Sunak himself said that he had “enormous respect” for those taking part in them.
More recently he has also been keen to express his “solidarity” with victims of antisemitic racism following events in Israel and Gaza.
Yet for some reason he now appears to believe that Starmer’s decision to show solidarity with black victims of racism is somehow derisory.
Following the session, I put this to his Press Secretary directly.
Asked if the Prime Minister believes Starmer was wrong to take the knee in solidarity with Black Lives Matter protestors, she told me that “I think the Prime Minister's view is that politicians are there to you know, to lead, not to, not to sort of do a virtue signalling move.
“So as far as he's concerned, like, you know, from our side we have a very diverse cabinet and we're very comfortable in, you know, in that, but I think it was a bit of virtue signalling on his behalf.”
Yet when asked whether the PM believes white footballers were also “virtue signalling” on the issue when they took the knee, she replied that he did not as they were “doing it for their teammates”.
After further pushing on the issue it remained unclear why the PM believes that some people taking the knee in solidarity with those protesting against anti-black racism is deserving of “enormous respect” while other people taking the knee in solidarity with those experiencing anti-black racism is deeply unBritish and derisory.
An Unconvincing Culture Warrior
The exchange highlights the absurd tangles the Prime Minister has got himself into in recent months with his belated conversion to the world of GB News style culture wars .
This unconvincing conversion has obliged Sunak to both pretend to be someone who cares about fringe issues such as the 15-minute city conspiracy theory, while indulging in ‘Great Replacement’ rhetoric with Italy’s far right PM, at the same time as claiming to be a sensible centre ground steward of the nation. The result is that he fails to make a convincing impression of being either.
Sunak's latest comments come in the same week that Starmer himself sought to distance his own party from the era of culture wars, describing the Prime Minister’s own attempts to indulge in them as “desperate”.
“In its desperation to cling on to power, at all costs, the Tory party is trying to find woke agendas in the very civic institutions they once regarded with respect", Starmer said in a speech on Monday.
Whether or not a Labour Government would be successful in moving British politics away from its focus on such topics remains to be seen, however.
Over recent years an entire political/media cottage industry has been created on the basis of importing exactly these kinds of US culture war tropes to the UK.
That it has so far been largely unsuccessful, with polls showing voters overwhelmingly remain much more concerned about core issues such the economy and the NHS, has not stalled these attempts.
Indeed, it is likely that should Starmer become Prime Minister, that certain parts of the media, and the Conservative Party itself, will see its appetite for such subjects only growing further.
Yet, what Sunak's rather clumsy attempts to ignite a culture war with the Labour Leader have shown is that those trying to wage such wars often end up doing far more damage to themselves and their own reputations than they ever manage with their actual targets.
Culture Secretary Hits Out at Supposed BBC Bias – But Claims Ofcom-Hit GB News is ‘Balanced’
Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer has criticised the BBC for a lack of impartiality, while appearing to praise controversial broadcaster GB News for being 'balanced'.
She claimed the BBC is no longer seen by viewers as “sufficiently impartial” – comments which made the front page of the Telegraph – as she announced that the public broadcaster’s website and social media will be subject to regulation by broadcast regulator Ofcom, ostensibly to make the BBC more accountable and trustworthy.
However, the Government's review of the BBC is not only confined to claims of impartiality but also funding.
Frazer said it is not appropriate for the BBC to have “criminal tools in its armoury” to prosecute people for not paying their TV licence fee, suggesting she will significantly water-down the body’s ability to enforce payment of the levy.
But this morning, she also downplayed criticisms of GB News, saying it offers “balance across the spectrum” when challenged about Conservative MPs interviewing other Conservative MPs on the channel, as well as the swathe of live Ofcom investigations into the broadcaster.
Jamie Stone MP, the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for culture, media and sport, hit back, said Frazer was prioritising 'culture wars' over supporting the BBC's delivery of quality services. "This attack on the BBC is yet another desperate distraction from a government in distress," he said.
"The BBC is the number one source of trusted news in the world and that comes down to proper independence and resilience to the political pressure we see from this Conservative Government," he added.
It comes amid the Government's push for reform within the BBC, following heated debates over its coverage of sensitive issues, including its reporting on the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel – with some critical of the BBC’s reluctance to call Hamas fighters “terrorists”.
There is also growing condemnation of the BBC’s Match of the Day host Gary Lineker, who is a freelancer but who faces heavy scrutiny over his political commentary on social media.
TV presenter India Willoughby questioned whether Frazer's concerns about bias applied to left-wing concerns over the BBC or were solely focused on allegations of bias against right-wing viewpoints. Meanwhile, Labour writer David Osland cited instances of senior BBC figures having close ties with the Conservative Party.
In a Sky News interview today, Frazer was challenged over the evidence for bias in the BBC. She could only point to broadcasting mistakes and “perceptions of bias” rather than any academic studies.
The latest prestigious Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism report indicated an increase in public trust in BBC News, contradicting the Government's stance.
Former BBC presenter Carol Vorderman and former senior BBC journalist Rob Burley have both highlighted the influence of Sir Robbie Gibb, a former head of communications for Prime Minister Theresa May, a member of the BBC Board, and a key figure in the launch of GB News as a former editorial advisor for the channel.
Frazer defended GB News, claiming it has "balance across the spectrum". She was asked on the BBC's Today programme whether GB News could be described as impartial when "so many of its shows are presented by former or current and often leading members of the governing party".
In comments widely publicised by the Ofcom-probed channel itself, Frazer replied: “A broadcaster has to be impartial over the spectrum of what it broadcasts, so I’ve listened to your news this morning and you’ve expressed this mid-term review in different ways across the programme this morning, sometimes putting the Government’s perspective, sometimes putting the BBC’s perspective.”
“There is a balance across the spectrum in relation to GB News, which isn’t regulated by the Government,” she added.
Dan Wootton’s 26 September 2023 show on GB News drew the most TV programme complaints to Ofcom in the whole year, with nearly 9,000 complaints. They followed misogynistic comments made by actor-turned-activist Laurence Fox about journalist Ava Evans. Fox was sacked by the channel and Wootton suspended.
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Huge Majority Believe it’s ‘Time for a Change’, But Most Think Keir Starmer Isn’t Offering it
Eight out of ten voters say it’s ‘time for change’ at the next general election, but only a minority believe Keir Starmer will deliver it, according to a new poll commissioned by Byline Times.
Pollsters We Think asked UK voters whether they believe it is now “time for a change” at the next general election. They found that an overwhelming majority of 79% of voters now believe it is, compared to just 21% who disagree.
Even those still planning to vote for the Conservatives appear to believe the country needs a new direction, with 40% agreeing that it is time for change, compared to 60% who do not.
Yet despite the apparent demand for change, voters have doubts over whether Keir Starmer and the Labour Party will be able to deliver it.
According to our poll 57% voters agree with the statement that there is “little real difference” between Labour and the Conservatives compared to just 43% who believe that “Labour is offering real change”.
These doubts extend to views of Starmer himself.
According to our survey, fewer than half (45%) of UK voters believe a Government led by Keir Starmer would be "significantly different" to one led by Rishi Sunak, with 36% believing it would be "broadly similar" and a further 19% unsure.
Even many Labour voters have their doubts about Starmer’s ability to deliver change according to our poll, with 29% saying they believe a Starmer administration would be broadly similar to one led by the current Prime Minister.
These doubts are also shared by current Conservative Party voters, who are split down the middle on whether Starmer would really mark a significant break from one led by their own party. Fewer than half (43%) of Conservative voters believe a Starmer Government would be significantly different from a Sunak Government, with 40% believing it would be broadly similar.
While voters are clear that they want change, they are much more split on whether any change in strategy is required from the Labour leadership in order to demonstrate this. According to the poll voters are split on whether Labour’s current approach is too cautious (14%), too risky (17%) or about right (39%).
They are similarly split on whether Labour opposes the Conservatives too little (18%), too much (19%) or get the balance about right (39%).
The sentiments picked up in the poll are also shared by voters in focus groups, according to Luke Tryl, who conducts regular sessions around the country for the organisation More in Common.
"One of the things, aside from headline results that I'm most interested in about the next general election is what turnout will be like and whether it will be a very low turnout", Tryl told Byline Times.
"Because people just don't aren't enthusiastic at the moment. They broadly want change but they're not sure that change is on offer."
The Refugees Turned Out on to Freezing Streets to Clear Rishi Sunak’s Asylum Backlog
It’s just before 10am and a queue has formed outside the Simon Community access hub in Glasgow’s city centre. People stamp their feet and blow on their fingers to try and thaw out. It’s minus five outside and many have spent the night huddled in parks or walking the streets, with temperatures dropping as low as minus seven.
Among those waiting for help at the charity’s doors are refugees who have recently been granted refugee status as part of Rishi Sunak’s drive to clear the legacy asylum backlog. The move, which this week resulted in the Prime Minister receiving a rebuke from the official statistics watchdog for making a series of false claims about it, has had the side effect of sending thousands of refugees out into a system that is unable to cope with them all at once.
As a result, within days of receiving their positive decision, many of those in the queue in Glasgow had been evicted from their accommodation and forced into destitution.
“The day I got my status, that is when my problems really started", said Mohamed, a recently-granted refugee from Sudan. “I waited two years for this decision, and I was so happy when I got it, but now I am out on the streets.” Less than two weeks after being granted leave to remain, Mohamed was evicted from his hotel and forced to sleep rough. “I went to a mosque nearby, but it was very full. When it closed at around midnight, I was walking, just walking, all night, trying not to be so cold.”
After a brief pause over the Christmas period, evictions started again this week. Frontline workers at the hub in Glasgow have already seen a spike in the numbers in need of emergency accommodation. “The Home Office’s plans to clear its self-made backlog is leading to unprecedented levels of harm,” said Simon Community Programme Director Annika Joy. “We’re deeply concerned that the Government’s failure to run a humane and efficient asylum system will mean charities and the caring people of Glasgow have to pick up the pieces.”
At the front desk, Hazem, a frontline support worker, is busy rifling through photocopied identity documents and letters from the Home Office. “Every day, we see many, many people coming in who have just got their status, but who are homeless. Some are living in Glasgow, but they’re also coming here from Manchester, Newcastle, Leeds, even London to find somewhere to stay. The problem is, if they’ve filled out a homeless application at a different local authority, we can’t do anything for them. We can only offer them a ticket to go back there.”
Many frontline workers fear this obligation will mean more refugees fall through the net, passed from charity to charity and council to council, without the resources required to support them. “We can’t do anything, legally, other than passing them on to other services,” said Hazem.
Nearby, the Scottish Refugee Council’s caseworking team are also struggling to cope with an increase in housing enquiries from newly-granted refugees. “We’ve seen a doubling in the number of people presenting as homeless, with around forty people a week coming in now,” says Gary Christie, Head of Policy. “The Home Office knew this would happen; it’s about getting people off their books. We need much better crisis planning to mitigate the risks of homelessness.”
Paul Sweeney, Scottish Labour MSP, echoes these concerns. “Since the mass decisions on claims started coming through, I’m seeing an uptick in the number of people calling my office with housing enquiries. We engage with the asylum support team at [Glasgow City] council to help them, but there’s no council housing and a shortage of housing stock here. Meanwhile, there’s 1,395 empty homes in Glasgow. It’s about bringing them back into use.”
He added: “We keep trying to engage meaningfully with the UK Government, to plan for a transition from asylum status to refugee status which doesn’t cause mass destitution, but they’ve consistently been found wanting.”
Shelter Scotland Director, Alison Watson, said that, while the Home Office policies have exacerbated Glasgow’s housing crisis, they are not the root cause. “A serious and long-standing shortage of social homes is at the heart of the housing emergency in Glasgow and elsewhere in Scotland. Despite that, in its budget last month, the Scottish Government delivered brutal cuts to the budget for social homes; a decision they know will lead to the housing emergency deteriorating even further. The housing emergency exists in Glasgow because of choices made at Westminster and Holyrood, not because people have come to the city fleeing violence and persecution.”
Later that day, as night fell and temperatures dropped once again, the Simon Community street team prepared to face the cold. Alex, an outreach worker, said his main concern was the numbers of destitute refugees who remain unknown to them.
“I wonder if the numbers of refugees out there are even higher than we realise because they’re rough sleeping under the radar,” he said. “The tendency among refugees is to try and be invisible, probably because of their experience of violence and racism. A lot of them sleep in parks, rather than in the centre of town now. We’d just remind members of the public to tell us so we know where they are and we can offer the help they need.”
A Home Office spokesperson told Byline Times, "The pressure on the asylum system has continued to grow, which is why we have taken immediate action to speed up processing times and cut costs for taxpayers.
"To minimise the risk of homelessness, we encourage individuals to make their onward plans as soon as possible after receiving their decision, whether that is leaving the UK following a refusal, or taking steps to integrate in the UK following a grant.
"We offer ample support once claims have been granted through Migrant Help, access to the labour market and advice on applying for Universal Credit."
Two Million More Brits Living Abroad Now Eligible to Donate to UK Parties as Ministers Scrap Time Limit
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The next Westminster election will be the first where every single British citizen living abroad will be entitled to vote - and donate to sway the election debate - no matter how long they have lived outside the country.
The abolition of the ‘15 year rule’ capping how long Brits retained the vote while living abroad means that an estimated extra two million people will be able to pick an MP, representing a constituency they may not have lived in for 50 years or more.
The Government estimates that the number of potential overseas voters following the introduction of the Overseas Electors measures will be between 3.2 and 3.3 million British citizens. The current electorate is around one million potential overseas voters.
Just over 230,000 people were registered as overseas voters at the 2019 general election, but that number is likely to triple. The Government’s Impact Assessment estimates that the proportion who will register to vote will be similar to those who could already vote abroad, which in 2017 and 2019 was 19%.
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The latest figures - which appear to be from 2017 - showed that 33% of all British-born emigrants living outside the UK in 2017 lived in Australia or New Zealand, 28% lived in the US or Canada and 26% in the EU – of which 6% lived in Ireland.
The Government estimates that the changes will cost £40m over the next 10 years.
How it Will Work
Overseas electors will be entitled to register in respect of the last place they were registered or, if they were never registered, the last place they were resident. This could be in any constituency in the UK. They must (attempt) to prove to a council Electoral Registration Officer that they used to live there to be added to the register.
However, if overseas electors lack documentary evidence of where they used to live in the UK, a UK resident voter can “attest” that they are telling the truth. The Government rejected a similar “attestation” mechanism for those who lack photo ID when voting in person in UK elections.
A recent Government paper revealed a “high degree of uncertainty” about the numbers who might register - and therefore the potential burden on local council electoral offices.
The Impact Assessment noted: “There is no official data on the number of British citizens living abroad. United Nations migration data and Office for National Statistics International Passenger Survey data have been used to estimate this…
"There is a high degree of uncertainty regarding the additional volumes of registration applications as a result of extending the overseas franchise to all British citizens who have been previously registered or resident in the UK.”
EXCLUSIVE
The Government is now able to steer the strategy and focus of the UK’s elections body.
Josiah Mortimer
Offshore Cash Bonanza?
Fears have previously been raised about the lack of checks or restrictions on donations from abroad when this change came into force. British citizens who’ve lived outside of the UK - for example tax havens - for decades can now donate unlimited sums of money to UK parties and campaigns, as Byline Times has reported.
A Cabinet Office source claimed there are strict rules which explicitly prohibit foreign money being funnelled through permissible donors on behalf of impermissible donors, adding that political parties and campaigners must take “all reasonable steps” to verify the permissibility of a donation within 30 days. It is a criminal offence to purposefully evade these rules.
However, the chances of a successful criminal prosecution for an overseas voter breaking UK election rules seem very slim. Almost no one is likely to be extradited from their foreign residence to the UK amid an electoral law breach.
Tom Brake, director of reform group Unlock Democracy, told Byline Times: 'With the potential for hundreds of thousands of UK citizens living abroad going onto the register for the first time, the government must do two things.
“Firstly, keep a watchful eye on marginal seats to ensure a disproportionate number of electors aren't registering in seats that could be swung by a handful of votes. Secondly, act to block any possibility of illegal foreign or criminal donations leaching into party funds.
“That means requiring political parties to conduct money laundering checks on big donations and to ban unincorporated associations from donating to political campaigns.”
BREAKING
Swing seats could be decided by Brits living in Moscow or Iran following changes to election rules
Josiah Mortimer
Significant Claims
Unlock Democracy estimates that around 300,000 extra people may now vote in UK parliamentary elections, amounting to around 450 extra voters per seat. Twelve seats had majorities smaller than that in 2019.
However, the distribution of the overseas voters in terms of where they register is likely to be very uneven, and potentially skewed towards wealthier seats.
UK Parliament elections covers UK parliamentary general elections, UK parliamentary by-elections and recall petitions. Eligibility for other types of election has not changed.
On Tuesday, Cabinet Office minister Simon Hoare said the Conservative pledge to deliver “Votes for Life” had been delivered. “I am pleased to be able to inform the House that, as of today, the 15-year limit on overseas electors’ voting rights is abolished…British expatriates continue to have strong links with the United Kingdom. Decisions on foreign policy, Brexit and trade will directly affect their lives.
“Now that we have left the EU, it is more important than ever to strengthen our ties with the British expatriate community. We want all British citizens abroad to remain part of our democracy, and they should continue to have their say in UK Parliamentary elections.”
Some countries including France and Italy have international constituency seats in their parliaments to ensure they have dedicated representation - for example, expat seats in Parliament for those in the Americas, Asia, Africa and so on. Ministers have rejected a similar proposal for Westminster.
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Johnson, Truss, Sunak: The Longest Parliament with the Lowest Results
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The 17th Century English Parliament lasting from 1640 until 1660 was known as the ‘Long Parliament’. We can only hope that we are not about to see anything comparable. Yet, the UK Parliament that first met on 17 December 2019, following a general election which gave Boris Johnson a thumping 80 seat majority, feels, in perception, like the longest Parliament ever.
The next general election can be delayed until five years after that initial meeting which, allowing for a minimum of 25 working days for campaigning, means as late as 28 January 2025. That would, however, impinge on the 2024 Christmas festivities, hardly a recipe for incumbent electoral success. Therefore, realistically, we will have a 2024 election, in all probability in the autumn given the current dire standing of the Conservative Party in the polls.
But Parliaments entering a fifth year, as in 1992-97 or 2005-10, rarely sustain their utility. The 2010-15 Parliament proved an exception because odium could be deflected onto the Liberal Democrats as Conservative coalition partners. It was also an ephemeral era of fixed term parliaments agreed as part of that Coalition deal.
Nonetheless, the 2019-24 Parliament is in a class of its own. It has become embarrassingly light on significant Government legislative business after all the turmoil of 2022. The Roman Empire had its years of multiple Emperors. Recent UK political history has come close to matching it, Number 10 Downing Street consecutively occupied by Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak. Then 2023 became almost one for rejoicing, with Sunak able to survive as Prime Minister until the very end.
Taking the current Parliament as an entity, what stands out are not just the momentous events with which it grappled, but how poorly they were handled. This applies to a self-inflicted debacle, two external shocks, and a globally shared existential imperative: Brexit, Covid, Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, and environmental apocalypse moving ever closer.
COVID Cronyism and Mone – The Tip of the Iceberg: Byline Times’ Full Story of the PPE Cash Carousel
Byline Times has been unravelling the dealings behind the procurement of personal protective equipment (PPE) in the UK since the very early days of the pandemic. Here’s what we learnt – and what we still need answers to…
Josiah Mortimer
Trade, Economy and Public Health
Johnson released a triumphant fist pump on confirmation of his 2019 electoral success, convinced that thereafter he could do much as he liked. He had promised to ‘get Brexit done’ through an ‘oven-ready’ deal. Negotiations produced something much more problematic than that implied, including a de facto trading barrier down the Irish Sea to prevent a hard border on the Irish mainland from undermining the Good Friday Agreement. Even Sunak’s mitigating 2023 Windsor Framework failed to entice the DUP into restoring power sharing institutions in Northern Ireland, albeit a party needing few pretexts for politically sulking, with its majority hold on the province’s electorate looking increasingly tenuous.
Concern mounted about the wider impact on the UK’s trading position from the greater friction inevitably introduced with prime European markets. New agreements negotiated wider afield only compensated for a fraction of the damage caused. The scheduled 2026 review of the 2021 EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement will therefore require more than token fine-tuning if the disruptive effect of Johnson’s cavalier Brexit are to be further alleviated.
No sooner had the UK withdrawn from the EU in early 2020 than a pandemic was looming over the horizon. The delayed response in March 2020 was repeated during a second infection wave in the autumn, leading to tens of thousands of avoidable deaths. Sunak, as Chancellor, had been instrumental in resisting further lockdowns, enlisting the aid of barely credible dissenting scientific voices, falsely positing a clash between the economy and public health when, in fact, they were interdependent. The ongoing Covid Inquiry has revealed in graphic detail, too, evidence of a toxic and dysfunctional working environment rampant in Johnson’s Number 10.
When it was divulged that public health regulations had been ignored in Downing Street, in what became infamously known as Partygate, it contributed – along with other scandals – to the premature demise of Johnson’s Premiership in September 2022, precipitating a slump in the Conservative Party’s poll ratings from which it is yet to recover.
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Cost of Living and Climate Breakdown
As Chancellor, Sunak had put together a substantial package of employee and business support to cushion the impact of the pandemic; one marred however by high levels of fraud, and with unlawful preferential routes used for granting public procurement contracts. As a lockdown-sceptic, he became more resistant towards the compelling arguments for extending this support until normal life resumed, despite being eventually obliged to accept that case. Similar hesitancy revealed itself in grudging willingness to approve state subsidies for consumers and the imposition of windfall taxes on fossil fuel producers to counteract a surge in energy prices consequent upon Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
With food prices also soaring, inflation peaked at over 11% in October 2022, higher than for four decades. Now subsiding, the rate has nonetheless remained above the official Bank of England target, an accompanying hike in interest levels piling further agony on mortgagees and renters, fuelling a serious cost of living crisis for millions of families. Supply chains are, moreover, at further risk from current developments in the Middle East. Liz Truss’s flirtation with trickle-down economics, during the briefest of stays as Prime Minister in autumn 2022, had merely served to exacerbate this financial instability.
Once Sunak seized the Premiership, any credit for international leadership on climate crisis was also gratuitously forfeited. Boris Johnson had at least paid lip service to this agenda though, as was often the case, his rhetoric far exceeded any concrete progress. Sunak, however, displayed extraordinary complacency, sanctioning new oil and gas licences in defiance of pleading from climate scientists to do precisely the opposite.
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A Grim Scorecard
There have been momentous challenges during the 2019-24 Parliament. We could equally have looked at crippling backlogs in the health and court services; severe capacity constraints in prisons; crises in social care and affordable housing; an increasing attainment gap in education; near bankruptcy of many local councils; constant disruption to public transport; or growing levels of relative and absolute poverty. All these maladies are a debilitating combination of economic stagnation, a high tax burden and deteriorating public services. In this context, the more emphasis is placed on future tax cuts, the greater will be an austerian squeeze on public services.
The bottom line is that average wages are projected to remain below their 2008 level, with reputable forecasters predicting that the current Parliament will be the first for several decades to oversee a decline in household living standards. Cultural issues of social identity have, moreover, been used to divert political attention from structural economic disadvantage with Sunak, a man of manifold riches, obscenely laying the blame on the most marginalised demographic groups for the country’s social ills.
The first of three Prime Ministers was an opportunistic maverick driven from office in disgrace; then came an ideological fanatic, forced out by financial chaos; followed by an occupant of Downing Street who will only countenance a proactive state as a very last resort. Indeed, on close inspection Sunak is, in many respects, just as culpable as Johnson for much that has gone wrong. All this has taken place in a Parliament moving inexorably towards a brutal electoral verdict on a period of painfully poor governance.
‘Sunak’s Election Date Guessing Game is Another Attempt at Distraction from his Government’s Incompetence’
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A curious thing happened last week. Asked by journalists about the timing of the next general election, Rishi Sunak said: "My working assumption is we’ll have a general election in the second half of this year."
In some ways, the revelation was not a surprise.
The Prime Minister must call a poll at some point before the end of this year (and it must be held by the end of January 2025), and commentators had seemed evenly split about whether he would do so before the summer or after it.
Nor was this a spontaneous announcement from Sunak: Westminster insiders had known the news for some days beforehand.
And yet, it was intriguing in two specific ways.
Sunak’s language – "working assumption" – implied that it was somewhat beyond his control, when in fact he has an absolute prerogative to request the election from the King any time he chooses. And he actually kept the door open for a spring election even while appearing to reject it: a "working assumption" can, of course, be subject to change.
What is going on?
In terms of political guesswork, 2 May had been gathering momentum as a likely date. Shortly before the New Year, the Government announced that the budget would be held on 6 March, earlier than usual. The theory went that the Chancellor might announce a series of giveaways – a major cut or abolition of inheritance tax, say, coupled perhaps with a cut to income tax. The Prime Minister would then immediately proffer that for public endorsement before the plans had a chance to unravel or be exposed as ideologically flawed or economically undeliverable.
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The 2 May date would also coincide with the local elections, and so (besides the convenience) also offer a crumb of advantage to the Conservatives: that the narrative of a drubbing at those local elections would not then pursue the Prime Minister for a further few months until the next public vote. In politics it is better to be presumed a massive vote-loser than to have it confirmed.
The alternative theory, now in the ascendant, runs that Sunak wishes to let tax cuts bed in, wait for the economy to improve, and perhaps see a reduction in the number of small boat crossings. Of course, none of this would be guaranteed. The public might have forgotten about the tax cuts (or been reminded about associated cuts to public services), and the economic situation could be worse. It also strengthens Labour’s charge that Sunak is ‘bottling’ an election, as Gordon Brown did to his cost in 2007.
Perhaps Sunak simply wants to stay in office for as long as possible. The date of 14 November is reportedly circulating in Westminster.
None of this is a good way to run a country.
Sunak’s ambiguity has not dampened speculation but fuelled it. Amid global turmoil and an ongoing cost of living crisis, this year’s focus will not be on the key issues facing ordinary people but on the timing of the election. The speculation will suck up the political oxygen for the next 11 months. It promises both to dominate and numb us.
That anaesthetisation is good for one person alone: the Prime Minister. While he runs down the clock to his (almost) inevitable ejection from office, he has the opportunity to keep the country guessing, continually drop fresh hints, and make use of all the ‘wiggle room’ that he can.
It offers him the perfect distraction from the incompetence of his Government. As Sunak’s authority and public approval crumbles around him, this is the one definitive bit of power remaining to him, and he seems determined to enjoy it.
This also requires journalists to engage in a task equally thankless, undignified and futile: to probe the inner workings of Sunak’s mind. We do not know what Sunak wants and we are not entirely sure that he does either.
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Does the Prime Minister actually enjoy his job? Does he want another five years of power, which if (by some miracle) he were to win it would almost certainly involve the slimmest of majorities and a return to the fractious chaos of the John Major years? Does he, as is widely suspected, in fact want to leave office and seek even greater wealth in the California tech sphere?
The problem is not that we don’t know, but that we have to ask these questions at all. This should not be about what the Prime Minister wants.
It is yet another absurdity of Britain’s patchwork democracy that its leader has the ability to call an election entirely at a moment of their choosing.
The Fixed-Term Parliaments Act of 2011, which removed that prerogative until its repeal in 2022, was (by common consent) flawed, but at least bestowed the fundamental power of calling elections onto Parliament rather than the Prime Minister. It would have been entirely possible to enact new legislation which forced a prime minister to secure the approval of the House of Commons before requesting a dissolution, but the Government rejected a Lords amendment to that effect, and Conservative MPs duly voted it down. As such, the UK’s uncodified constitution of gentlemen’s conventions continues unhindered.
In the end, perhaps, it doesn’t much matter when the election comes. Whether in May or November, the public will issue its judgement and the Conservatives will feel it. In the meantime, the Government will continue its paralysis – and inflict it on everyone else.
Just One Per Cent of Voters Say Rishi Sunak’s Government is ‘Very Honest’
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Just one per cent of voters believe Rishi Sunak’s administration is “very honest” according to an exclusive new poll for Byline Times, revealing huge mistrust in the current government.
The Prime Minister last year claimed that he was “delivering” on his promise to restore “integrity, professionalism and accountability” to Downing Street.
However, a poll conducted by pollsters We Think for Byline Times at the end of December, suggests he has a very long way to go to convince voters of this.
Asked to what extent, if at all, they would describe the current Government as being either honest, or corrupt, 57% of voters said they would describe them as being corrupt.
Among all voters 27% described them as being quite corrupt, compared to 30% who described them as very corrupt.
Voters are much less likely to see Sunak’s administration as being honest.
Among all voters just one per cent were willing to describe the Government as being ‘very honest’ with only a further 11% describing them as ‘quite honest’.
Even among Conservative voters, just four per cent said they would be willing to describe them as being very honest.
This widespread distrust in Downing Street is echoed by voters' response to the Prime Minister's claim to the Covid Inquiry last month to have been unable to recover any of his WhatsApp messages from the time of the pandemic.
According to our poll just 23% of voters believe his excuse for failing to provide the messages, compared to 77% who disbelieve him.
Separate polling conducted for Byline by We Think this week confirms this broad anti-politics feeling among the public.
According to the poll, 70% of voters say they are inclined to believe that politicians in Westminster are “in it for themselves” compared to just 12% who believe they are “devoted to serving the British people”.
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The Prime Minister on Thursday suggested that he would call a general election in the second half of this year.
However, our polling suggests that the apparent collapse in trust in the Government’s honesty is reflected in voters’ expectations of their future performance, should they win another term.
Asked whether they believed another Conservative government would make their life better, just 16% said they thought it would, compared to 48% who said it would make it worse and 36% who said it would make no difference at all.
Despite being somewhat more optimistic about the prospects of a Labour government, voters appear split on whether it will make a meaningful difference to their lives, however.
Asked how a Labour government would impact them 39% said they believed it would make their lives better compared to 31% who said it would make their lives worse and 30% who said it would make no difference at all.
However, according to separate polling conducted this week by We Think, there is still significant optimism among voters about the upcoming general election.
Asked how they felt about the outcome of that general election, 47% said they felt ‘hopeful’, compared to 30% who said they felt ‘fearful' and just 22% who said they felt ‘apathetic.’
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