What has happened in British politics in the last year has to be one of the most shocking turnarounds in history. After Brexit, the Tories seemed unstoppable, while Labour with Jeremy Corbyn at the helm seemed close to falling apart – some even predicted the end of the party. Despite an absolutely horrendous campaign by the Conservatives for the June election, they still seemed confident that they could easily get the majority again and even increase their lead.
Then June 8 came around and changed everything. The Tories lost 13 seats and had to negotiate a coalition with the Democratic Unionist Party to regain the majority in Parliament, while Corbyn’s Labour gained 30 seats and suddenly saw itself as the winner of the election. Now, a few weeks later, Labour is leading all polls, some even by up to eight percentage points, while Theresa May is, as George Osborne bluntly proclaimed already during election night, a ‘dead woman walking.’ Months after Labour seemed close to their end, the Tories now need to react quickly.
There is good news, though, as in the last few weeks a more than peculiar phenomenon has gained steam: the “Moggmentum.” This social media trend with the objective of getting Jacob Rees-Mogg, North East Somerset’s MP, to Downing Street, has started only recently, but garnered a lot of attraction. Rees-Mogg’s odds of becoming the next leader of the Conservatives stood at 50/1 on July 1, now they are at 10/1, only bested by Boris Johnson, Philip Hammond (both 6/1), and David Davis, the current favorite (3/1). The ascendance of this until recently relatively unknown MP shows that there’s at least some hope for the Tories.
Rees-Mogg is basically the exact opposite of what the current Tory leadership is all about. While Theresa May has talked all along about government intervention into the economy with great industrial plans and a rejection of ‘untrammeled free markets’ and ‘the cult of selfish individualism’ – both written in this year’s Conservative election manifesto – Rees-Mogg has stood up for a mix of traditional conservatism and libertarianism, believing in ‘minimal state interference, free enterprise, personal liberty within a framework of tradition, self-discipline and family values, low taxes.’
This post was published at Ludwig von Mises Institute on August 2, 2017.
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