Last week, having run out of episodes of Married at First Sight UK to watch, I turned to Quentin Skinner’s peerless short guide to Niccolo Machiavelli.
The Atkinson family copy is well-thumbed. It belonged to my mother as a student and was frequently consulted by me to little benefit during my torrid and abortive career as a student politician. Nonetheless, it’s a cracking read, and the best introduction to the philosopher I know, as one would expect from a former Regius Professor of History at England’s second-best university.
Unfortunately, even when I try to read for pleasure, I find it difficult not to be reminded of the Tory leadership race. Having started The Trial, the struggle has become even more inescapable, as our interminable and incomprehensible collective ordeal approaches its close. In the case of Skinner’s book, the biggest reminder came in the chapter on the Discourses on Livy.
Machiavelli is addressing the problem of the sons of Brutus. When Lucius Junius Brutus overthrew Tarquinius Superbus, the last King of Rome, in the interest of establishing the Republic, he discovered that his sons “were led to conspire together with other young Romans against their native city”. Why? They had benefited from the previous regime and lost out from its fall.
Since “they were unable to enjoy the extraordinary privileges under the consuls that they had enjoyed under the King…it seemed to them that the liberty of the people had become their slavery”. For Brutus, the treachery of his sons was a threat to the new constitution he had established. What could be done?
Simple. Against this type of risk, the Florentine explains, there is “no more powerful remedy, none more effective nor more certain nor more necessary, than to kill the sons of Brutus”. It may have seemed cruel, even shocking, for Brutus to condemn his sons to death. But Machiavelli insists such severity is crucial.
He argues that “he who sets a state free and does not kill Brutus’s sons, maintains himself but a little while”. Partisans of a previous order who cannot reconcile themselves to a new one will always threaten the latter’s stability. The needs of the state require swift and decisive action.
Readers may wonder how this links to Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick. Whoever wins will have done with the support of only a third of MPs – a worryingly similar figure to that achieved by Iain Duncan Smith in 2001 and Liz Truss two years ago. Rumours persist that member turnout is lower than previously, reflecting, perhaps, disengagement. Wembley is a long way away.
Consequently, a lot has been made of the importance of party unity. For my sanity, I do not want to do this over again in two years. With a parliamentary party of only 121, we can all hang together or hang separately. The next leader cannot leave their rivals and their allies stewing on the backbenches.
Eliot Wilson has a good rundown of the crucial positions that need filling and a few suggestions of who to fill them. Will Mel Stride’s prolonged audition for the Shadow Chancellorship prove successful? Which will it be for Tom Tugendhat – Shadow Foreign Secretary or Defence? Can Neil O’Brien be cloned, so he can shadow as many briefs as possible at once?
All will become clearer after Saturday. Yet for all the vitality of MPs getting along, valorising party unity can be taken too far. The next leader of the Conservative Party, if they are serious about changing Britain, is going to have to have a few large, difficult, and totemic fights with their own party. And, if it proves necessary, they must be willing to kill the Sons of Brutus.
Take the ECHR. As les enfants terribles at J’Accuse have explained, Jenrick’s pledge is best understood as a marker or a wedge. Pledging to leave it is designed to prove that after fourteen years of broken promises the Conservatives are finally serious about Getting Migration Done.
Undoubtedly, a decent number of MPs are uncomfortable with such a pledge. They would struggle to serve in Jenrick’s Shadow Cabinet or toe the party line if calling for Britain to quit the ECHR was required. But Jenrick would argue that this is a battle we must be willing to have. Like Boris Johnson’s struggles against the Remain Ascendancy, it is a chance to show we are serious.
There may come a time when MPs break from the party line. Gaius Julius Jenrick would have the same choice as Johnson had when 21 Conservative MPs rebelled over Brexit: acquiesce in their defiance and lose face, or strip them of the whip. Johnson chose the latter. A determined Jenrick would do the same. Reluctantly, the Sons of Brutus would have been put to the sword.
A marker would have been laid down that this was not the same Conservative Party that seemed impotent as small boat crossings soared. When Badenoch has descended from Mount Olympus, she would surely want to take a similar approach on a chosen issue if she is as serious about dismantling our post-1997 shadow constitution. The thicket must be cleared.
Readers might suggest that this would be unnecessarily bold, and tactically stupid. The gap between us and the Liberal Democrats is, in parliamentary terms, worryingly close. A big enough sweep of defections amongst MPs sceptical of ECHR-scepticism could deprive us of our status as His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition. Is it a risk worth running to recover a smidgen of plausibility?
I would suggest that is an arduous but necessary proving ground. Any government serious about reforming Britain’s dysfunctional central state will find themselves upsetting a great number of vested interests. A lot of people will be made unemployed; a lot, as per Badenoch, will need to go to prison. Sensible policies for a happier Britain. Reach down into the gutter for that crown.
Earlier in this campaign, I asked the Lee Kuan Yew question of James Cleverly: does he have that iron in him? The same should apply to Badenoch and Jenrick. The next Tory leader must not only say they are tough enough but find some way to prove it in the attention vacuum of opposition.
Look at how Keir Starmer dispatched Jeremy Corbyn, and later the two-child limit rebels. Any removal of the whip would not have to be permanent if rebellious MPs were able to show sufficient contrition. I remain open to alternative options. But picking a few judicious fights with their own party – and, if necessary, slaying a few Sons of Brutus – seems the right way to go.
It is a path well-trodden by Margaret Thatcher and David Cameron. The next leader might find them easier to copy than poor, misunderstood Niccolo.
