British Conservatives’ Last Hustings: Bojo vs. Hujo

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by Laura Lai/ Comment

I have never been preoccupied by the conservative hair dying topic, but now that I know that Boris Johnson’s golden hair color is God given and not some cosmetics industry achievement, I can sigh of relief and concentrate better on the last hustings of the British Conservative Party for the party leader and Prime Minister vacancies. This last hustings took place in London, on Friday, the 19^th of July and it was moderated (and broadcasted live) by Ian Dale from radio LBC. Each of the last two finalists, Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt, had one hour. In this one hour, they were each introduced by a supporter, hold a 15 to 20 minutes speech and took questions from the conservatives attendees.

All hustings for the Prime Minister vacancy addressed only the Conservative Party members, because it is them who will elect the party leader and the new Prime Minister for the whole United Kingdom (UK) due to the British voting system.

            Broadly speaking, there are two major voting systems: a majority and a representative one (there is a mixed one, too, but this is another discussion). The UK voting system is called ‘first-past-the-post’ and is a majority voting system. It basically means that the candidate with the largest number of votes in a constituency wins the elections for that constituency. It is a typical voting system for countries with two major political parties (ex. United States of America, UK, etc) and frequently met among the Commonwealth countries (ex. Australia, New Zealand, etc). This voting system disadvantages political parties usually ranked 3^rd or 4^th (for ex. the Liberal Democrats (LibDem) in the UK), because the percent of the casted votes does not reflect in the number of seats the party gets (usually less seats than votes). But this voting system advantages the regional political parties (ex. the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) of Northern Ireland, Sinn Fein also from Northern Ireland, Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) from Scotland, etc.). It also advantages even smaller parties: A candidate from the ‘Drivers’ Party’ or ‘Electric Cars Party’ can also win a constituency. Theoreticians consider this voting system as being more stable in democracy, because the government cannot fall, unless there is turmoil inside the ruling party. The discussions on Brexit, as well as the defeat of the Conservative Party in the European elections – won by the Brexit Party – lead to the resignation of the current Prime Minister, Theresa May, and the beginning of a hustings for this vacancy among the members of the Conservative Party.

After successive hustings and a large number of candidates, Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt are the finalists. One of them will be the next UK Prime Minister. Last Friday each of them had a last opportunity to convince their colleagues to cast their votes for one or the other.

            I have heard two speeches of two candidates, who are proud of the British democracy. The style is different, though. Jeremy Hunt is more the showman type, slightly academic – although an entrepreneur – with lots of names and quotes. Boris Johnson was the typical politician who has prepared a written speech that he presented in an energetic way. I think it was a great idea for Boris to visually show what the European Union (EU) requires from the UK, by bringing that kipper and the ice plastic bag required by the EU, the ice bag actually making the kipper more expensive.

            They both talked in collegial terms about each other and about their predecessors. Jeremy mentioned Margaret Thatcher, but Boris… very surprising to me – and this is something I appreciated a lot – Boris mentioned Theresa May, from whose Cabinet he resigned over Brexit issue, whom he appreciates for her green policy ambitions. He mentioned her following a question from the public and by the way the answer was formulated, I have no doubts that it was spontaneous bringing to light a great political quality for the common good of Boris Johnson. They both opposed their speeches to Jeremy Corbyn, as the common political adversary and both avoided to give a date for the Queen speech. They are both feminists, understood as the equality among sexes and encouraging more women in politics, but based on meritocracy.

I also think that a woman can undertake political tasks as good or as bad as a man does, but given the fact that politics is about back stage discussions, more or less dirty compromises, more or less caring about the people, and public appearances sometimes, both genders must have a certain character for politics. And whatever that character feature is – because I do not know to publicly name it – can very well exist in a woman as well as in a man. I studied for a doctoral degree in Political Sciences, because I like to swim among theories … like a fish. I found it exciting and challenging, but due to lack of financial resources … no doctoral degree, no teaching, but also no regrets. However, I agree with Boris that imposing quotas, as the European Union does, is discriminatory towards the qualified men. The quotas imposes on a selection committee to pick a woman, although she may not be as qualified as a man counter candidate. Jeremy also is in favor of backing women based on meritocracy.

            Both candidates identified the same needs of the British society that they want to tackle once elected for the Prime Minister open position. They can be categorized as follows: economy, Brexit, infrastructure and environment. For Boris to level up the education is highly important, too, while for Jeremy the allocation of two percent for defense is among its priorities.

The two candidates mainly differ at the top priority: For Boris Johnson the first among its priorities is delivering Brexit, while for Jeremy Hunt the first among its priorities is to fire up the economy and the country’s GDP and make the British economy a green one, a high tech one and more pro-business oriented, actually the ‘next Silicon Valley’. On Brexit issue Jeremy Hunt is convinced that he can re-open the negotiations with the Europeans. His conviction is based on the fact that he is the Foreign Secretary in Theresa May’s Cabinet and this makes him familiar with Brussels and its bureaucrats. Boris Johnson also spent many years in Brussels, as a journalist, and he must also be familiar with the environment and the European bureaucrats, who have actually repeatedly said that there would be no further Brexit negotiations.

Therefore there are speculations on the creative ways Brexit will unfold next in order for the government to deliver on the majority’s democratic referendum demand. It seems that Boris Johnson understood better the reason why the Conservative Party got such a low score in the European elections and the reason why the Brexit Party of Nigel Farage won these last elections. It was not about GDP or percentage allocated to the defense, it was neither about environment nor about education, it was not about the percentage of women in politics or about whether or not women can do the same political job as men do. Why did the Conservative Party lost and the Brexit Party won?