Less than a month ago, Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak stared down the barrel of a political gun. Their plan to cut UK overseas aid spending from 0.7% of gross national income to 0.5% faced defeat. At least 45 Conservative MPs – all elected, as Johnson and Sunak were, on the promise to maintain the 0.7% aid level – were committed to reversing the cut.
On Tuesday, only 24 of the Tories rebelled. The government won by 35. So the cut now stands. It stands, moreover, for the foreseeable future. Sunak managed to winnow the revolt by promising to restore the 0.7% figure when, “on a sustainable basis”, the government is no longer borrowing to pay for current expenditure, and underlying debt is falling. This is a Bank of Neverland promise.
Theresa May told MPs that Sunak had informed her the return to 0.7% could come in four or five years’ time. That would be after the next election. There are no guarantees that this week’s promise will be in the Tory election manifesto. Even if it is, that weasel phrase – “on a sustainable basis” – means the Treasury will get to decide. In effect there will need to be a change of government before Britain returns to the 0.7% aid spending commitment.
So the scoundrel in Downing Street has got away with it again – up to a point. Because of Covid, the government had to overturn its orthodoxies to borrow eye-watering amounts of cash. To sugar that pill, and with an eye on succession, Sunak took the axe to a pledge many in the party hate, and which is also unpopular with much of the public. No other piece of spending has been treated in this way. It is not part of a serious fiscal strategy. It is a pure political pantomime – but at the expense of the world’s deprived people.
Yet it may be an error as well as a disgrace. Although Johnson and Sunak won the battle this week, they did so at a price. In time the argument may contribute to the loss of the war. This may seem wishful thinking. It is not. There are several reasons.
The first is that the backbench revolt was not negligible, even though it failed. Revolts always reflect important differences, and this one was a heavyweight affair. As well as May, it involved the runner-up in the last leadership contest, Jeremy Hunt, five other former cabinet ministers, seven other former ministers and six select committee chairs. In short, it marks the re-emergence, after Johnson’s purge of the pro-Europeans in 2019, of a weighty new coalition of anti-Johnson, one-nation Tories.
Its importance increases because it was not a revolt of usual suspects. Political mapping of the Tory backbenchers is an inexact science, but backbench revolts against Johnson have often involved two main groups. One is the mostly rightwing libertarians. They have often been veterans of the Brexit revolts against May, but they also include significant numbers of the 2019 intake. They are now focused on resisting Covid regulations and pushing Johnson towards his reckless “freedom day” next week.
The other main group are the China hawks, stretching from some imperial neocons across to human rights supporters. These MPs opposed Johnson on Huawei and backed a trade bill amendment in January in which they targeted China’s genocide against the Uyghurs. There is some overlap between these two groups, but many differences of personnel too. Now there is a third group to add to the Venn diagram, in the shape of the one-nationers.
It all adds up to a divided Conservative party that is more difficult to manage than the triumphalist aftermath of the December 2019 election win implied. That difficulty is now poised to deepen, not just on already familiar issues but on fresh ones.
After the loss of the Chesham & Amersham byelection, one of these will be planning and housing, where the government must soon choose whether to shelve its deregulatory plans or face further revolts. Another is whether to maintain the £20 universal credit uplift, which is due to be withdrawn at the end of September. Both will send big signals.
Looming behind all these are the unresolved issues of Covid, and post-Covid public spending and how to pay for it. Sunak faces an autumn of defining choices – over ending Covid-era support for the economy, over departmental spending priorities and over tax and borrowing options to balance the books. He cannot take the party for granted on any of these.
Unpicking the pensions triple lock would be an issue to, in electoral terms alone, make cutting the aid budget look easy. Responding to northern Tory demands for sweeping investment in seats won from Labour in 2019 must also be balanced against the rising threat to middle-class Tory seats in the south from the Liberal Democrats.
The failed aid revolt was not a damp squib. It is part of a complex, volatile and continuing political realignment in a Britain struggling to renew forms of majoritarian common purpose. Several of the best speeches on Tuesday – including those by Hilary Benn, Andrew Mitchell and Rachel Reeves – all highlighted how the aid cut, the Euros finals and the emergence from Covid each pose a question about who we are as a nation. Johnson has got the answers wrong on all of them. It is an indication of why he will fail in the end.
Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist
