As I mentioned in a previous post, I attended the launch of the new grassroots campaign, Popular Conservatism, last week.
I went because I read a report in the Sunday Times the previous weekend and was curious to see what the fuss was about.
We were told that one thousand people had applied to attend the launch, but the Upper Hall at the Emmanuel Centre in Westminster could only accommodate 250 so I guess I was one of the lucky ones.
I arrived 45 minutes before the main business was due to start and there was no mistaking the venue because outside stood Steve Bray, the ‘infamous’ and extremely tiresome anti-Brexit campaigner, blasting out music in an effort to disrupt proceedings.
I didn’t see a single policeman which I found odd because you could hear the racket 100 yards away so it must have been extremely annoying for everyone in the nearby offices and apartments.
Thankfully the walls of the Emmanuel Centre are thick and there was only a brief moment during the meeting when the noise filtered through.
Meanwhile the rather officious security staff inside the building were taking their duties extremely seriously.
In a previous post I wrote about the problem we had before our reception in the House of Commons last Wednesday.
Well, security for the launch of Pop Con was similarly tight, to the extent that they tried to take my laptop case even though it had nothing in it apart from my iPad which I wasn’t handing over to anyone!
Eventually they lost interest which allowed me to slip past and into the hall which was already two-thirds full, 30 minutes before the event was due to start.
Fair play to Pop Con (I much prefer the abbreviated name, btw), it was teeming with journalists, broadcasters and camera crews, and I saw several familiar faces including Beth Rigby (Sky News), Christopher Chope (GB News), and Harry Cole (The Sun).
There were familiar faces in the audience too, notably former minister Lord Frost and a number of Conservative MPs.
Nigel Farage, working for GB News, was there too so the atmosphere, if not electric, was several notches above your average Westminster or party conference fringe event.
Eventually, at eleven o’clock, there was movement at the back of the hall and the speakers, led by former prime minister Liz Truss, swept in and took their seats at the front.
The first to speak was Mark Littlewood, formerly director-general of the Institute of Economic Affairs and now the newly anointed director of Pop Con, whose baby I suspect this really is.
After a short introductory speech, Mark introduced the four speakers – Lee Anderson (until recently deputy chairman of the Conservative Party), Jacob Rees-Mogg and Liz Truss, plus Mhairi Fraser, the Conservative PPC for Epsom and Ewell.
Truss and Rees-Mogg were clearly the big draws, but Anderson gave arguably the most entertaining speech. He certainly got the biggest laugh when he said, “Jacob and I were both born on an estate, except that mine was a council estate.”
For me, though, it was Mhairi Fraser who made the bigger impression when she declared, "The state is no Mary Poppins," adding, "It's time to put nanny to bed".
Rishi Sunak's generational tobacco ban was one of the policies she criticised, and her comments drew warm applause which surprised me a bit because Conservative audiences can be capricious when it comes to smoking.
Here, though, her criticism of the generational ban was met with approval, so I hope the PM was listening and taking notes.
Overall, it was a well organised event that attracted a large audience and an impressive amount of media coverage.
The coverage may have been overwhelmingly negative but given the political climate that's to be expected and I don't think it will concern Pop Con’s director too much.
Truth is, most campaign directors would be thrilled with the interviews and column inches the launch generated, and Mark is no stranger to controversy. In fact, he seems to enjoy it.
He also has a thick skin (he's a former Lib Dem press officer, for goodness sake!) and won’t be phased by the initial reaction, I’m sure.
Pop Con’s launch may have provoked derision on social media and in parts of the mainstream media, but it put it on the political map, and after a single event you can't ask for much more.
If I have one small criticism, based on nothing more than the launch, it was the scattergun nature of the speeches, a problem best summed up by political journalist Kate McCann (Times Radio).
'So far,' she posted on X, 'speakers at Pop Con have rallied against: smoking ban, green levies, Davos man, private jets, not being able to mine fossil fuels, fear of steak tax, cake tax, the EU, courts, quangos in general, “Green weirdos”, self-ID, Equality Act, Covid lockdowns, Human Rights Act.'
In his closing remarks Mark announced that Pop Con is going to publish a book in June, which may clarify things, but leaving the hall I wasn't entirely sure what I had just witnessed.
Was it the launch of a new grassroots movement to bring about change within the Conservative Party, as we were led to believe, or was it something else - the first tentative step, perhaps, towards a new, populist, centre-right party to rival the Conservative Party itself?
The grassroots movement idea is certainly consistent with what I know of Mark because ever since I’ve known him (and I don’t claim to know him well) he has been an advocate of grassroots movements.
Back in the day I remember him arguing for a grassroots movement of smokers. (We disagreed not on the concept, but on the practicality. In my view, that ship had sailed long ago, if it ever existed.)
Today the army Mark wants to march on Westminster is from a rather different pool of potential foot soldiers, but the principle is much the same.
Whether the ambition of a low tax, small state movement is achievable at present remains to be seen. Realistically, this has to be a long-term project.
I would query too whether attempting to revive a dead horse (the current Conservative Party) is even the way to go. It’s such a broad church, some MPs are Conservative in name only.
So instead of banging heads against brick walls, how about launching a UK version of the ACT party in New Zealand (whose hand was behind the generational tobacco ban being dropped)?
It’s true that under our first past the post (FPTP) voting system, small parties have a huge disadvantage, but I suspect that launching a political party with consistent, clearly defined, policies may ultimately be easier and more impactful than trying to change from within an existing behemoth that has no identity or purpose other than winning general elections.
Either way, I’ll be watching with interest.
Postscript: Prior to its launch, and before I had even heard of Pop Con, I had invited three of the five speakers at last week’s event to attend and address Forest’s generational tobacco ban event at the House of Commons.
I was told that one had a previous commitment (fair enough).
A second accepted our invitation but didn’t turn up, despite being sent a reminder.
The third, disappointingly, didn’t even reply to our invitation(s).
I'll leave you to guess who they were!
