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UK
12 July 2017

Understanding #Moggmentum: the hollow cult of Jacob Rees-Mogg

What is behind the social media stardom of parliament’s most cartoonish toff?

“Floccinaucinihilipilification,” said Jacob Rees-Mogg in 2012. And the nation swooned.

It’s the longest word ever to be used in the Commons (meaning: to find something worthless, origin: Latin bantz at Eton) and it brought the MP for North East Somerset a taste of viral fame he has increasingly come to enjoy since being elected in 2010.

The clip is just one of many Rees-Mogg moments that have been fondly giffed and shared online a disproportionate amount for a right-wing Tory MP. His Instagram, which he updates with images of his posh pursuits, has a following of over 32,000.

The story of his sixth son being born, and named “Sixtus”, reached readers far beyond those with a niche political interest last week when it was covered by most mainstream papers. The Guardian called him a “Tory sex machine”, while the Mirror ran a handy guide to the eccentric names he’s given his brood.

He first came to public attention in 1997, when he ran unsuccessfully in the Labour stronghold of Central Fife – and famously campaigned with his former nanny. Driving around in a Mercedes. “A Bentley would be most unsuitable for canvassing,” he later informed the Spectator.

Now the 48-year-old MP has a “grassroots” movement called #Moggmentum behind him, a hashtag that trends every time he speaks in the Commons or posts a new picture of himself on the campaign trail. It celebrates Rees-Mogg with memes and gifs, much like Ed Miliband’s unlikely fan club in 2015, the Milifandom.


Moggmentum is supposed to be a response to Labour campaigners’ superior social media presence. It even calls for Rees-Mogg to be Tory leader. A gently jokey campaign called Ready for Mogg is gathering signatures from those who wish to see Rees-Mogg as Prime Minister. Its founder, Sam Frost, explained his appeal to the Daily Politics: “He’s a little bit eccentric; he doesn’t take himself so seriously.” The campaign has over 12,000 signatures.


Often described as a character out of a PG Wodehouse novel or from a bygone era, the ever suited, top-to-toe tweeded, bespectacled politician makes a virtue of his plummy accent and toffish ways.

When asked in a BBC documentary called Posh and Posher about privilege in politics, he famously described himself as a “man of the people – vox populi, vox dei”.

Rees-Mogg is an Old Etonian, Oxford-educated, the son of a former Times editor and peer, and part of an old established Somerset family. Yet the public does seem to be overlooking his upper-class credentials and finding ways to connect with him, particularly through his relationship with his children (his eldest son wears a matching double-breasted suit as they campaign together).

 

We shall have to take our business elsewhere.

A post shared by Jacob Rees-Mogg (@jacob_rees_mogg) on


“There is a surprising amount of deference in some parts of North East Somerset to the fact that he and his family have been around for generations,” says local Labour councillor and charity worker Robin Moss, who ran against Rees-Mogg in the most recent election. “And there’s quite a few people who like him because he’s independent, and different – certainly not a clone MP. His son goes round with him as a sort of mini-me, wearing tweed . . .  he’s a good dad in that sense, who involves his children.”

Rees-Mogg is an ardent Brexiteer and rebel, and is often wheeled out by the broadcasters for damning critiques of his own party and government. This outspokenness is part of his appeal – and gives him a media platform.

“He’s become something of a social media celebrity, and he’s been on Question Time and he’s not fazed at all,” says a fellow Tory MP. “It appears that the public like him.”


“There’s certainly an element of name recognition,” adds Moss. “He does cultivate the loveable British eccentric . . . but would you seriously want Bertie Wooster representing you in parliament?”

Conservative MPs feel the same. Although he is thought to be well-mannered and has no enemies, some believe he appears to be a backward Tory who gives off the wrong impression of the party. Others are simply unsure of what he stands for.

Although there is a gently satirical movement to propel him to leadership, this isn’t being “taken seriously at the moment – but who knows?” I hear from one Tory MP. “He does appear, in terms of his lifestyle, to be out-of-step with the majority of public opinion. Becoming leader requires other attributes which, at the moment, he doesn’t show much in the way of developing.”


Facebook: Reem memes with a right wing theme.

There is a sense on all sides, however, that Rees-Mogg’s new-found social media fame is no accident. He wants a degree of power; he is running to be the new Treasury select committee chair, after all. “I don’t think the personality cult thing’s by chance,” a colleague tells me. “He has an honest ambition. This isn’t something new; he’s been a young fogey since he was born. We happen to live in an age where people who appear to be different [are popular]. It’s partly self-propelled.”

Although Moss, his Somerset rival, also believes Rees-Mogg “plays up to the MP for the Eighteenth Century” image, he did not attack this during the campaign. “Dan Morris [the former Labour MP who lost to Rees-Mogg] made the mistake in 2010, and our candidate in 2015, of being personal,” he says. This involved using “some slightly odd photos, concentrating on the nanny”, and it backfired. “It really gets up people’s noses, understandably. Don’t do the personal . . . It doesn’t work and it’s not right.”

Indeed, in the 2008 Crewe and Nantwich by-election – when Labour activists attempted to toff-shame the Tory candidate Edward Timpson by chasing him around in top hats – the campaign ended in defeat. 


Facebook: Reem memes with a right wing theme.

Like other privileged candidates before him (Nigel Farage comes to mind), Rees-Mogg is able to appear an “anti-establishment” outsider, despite his background. “He was never part of the Cameroon circle” despite being an Old Etonian, says a Tory MP. “[He] didn’t fit in with their world view.”

Read more: Life after Milifandom – and why Ed isn’t to blame if I fail my Russian history AS-level

Rees-Mogg’s voting record, and which bills he chooses to filibuster, undermine his persona as a loveable toff. He voted against same-sex marriage, has talked out bills to scrap the bedroom tax, teach first aid in schools, and others, voiced support for Donald Trump, and called for his party to collaborate with Ukip.

If he wishes to win over his fellow MPs, these views may cause him problems on both sides of the House. “My guess is distance must provide a bit of soft focus. Scrutiny and focus would not do him any favours,” says Moss, who made his campaign against him “all about how he voted and how he filibustered – things like the rape clause in the benefits legislation”.

But in a world with Boris Johnson as Foreign Secretary and Donald Trump as US President, Jacob Rees-Mogg’s personality cult may yet avoid the public’s floccinaucinihilipilification.

Anoosh Chakelian is senior writer at the New Statesman.

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Northern Ireland
28 July 2017

An Irish Sea border – and 3 other tricky options for Northern Ireland after Brexit

There is no easy option for Northern Ireland after Brexit. 

Deciding on post-Brexit border arrangements between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic is becoming an issue for which the phrase "the devil is in the detail" could have been coined. Finding a satisfactory solution that delivers a border flexible enough not to damage international trade and commerce and doesn’t undermine the spirit, or the letter, of the Good Friday Agreement settlement is foxing Whitehall’s brightest.

The dial seemed to have settled on David Davis’s suggestion that there could be a "digital border" with security cameras and pre-registered cargo as a preferred alternative to a "hard border" replete with checkpoints and watchtowers.

However the Brexit secretary’s suggestion has been scotched by the new Irish foreign minister, Simon Coveney, who says electronic solutions are "not going to work". Today’s Times quotes him saying that "any barrier or border on the island of Ireland in my view risks undermining a very hard-won peace process" and that there is a need to ensure the "free movement of people and goods and services and livelihoods".

The EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, has made dealing with the Irish border question one of his top three priorities before discussions on trade deals can begin. British ministers are going to have to make-up their minds which one of four unpalatable options they are going to choose:

1. Hard border

The first is to ignore Dublin (and just about everybody in Northern Ireland for that matter) and institute a hard border along the 310-mile demarcation between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic. Given it takes in fields, rivers and forests it’s pretty unenforceable without a Trump-style wall. More practically, it would devastate trade and free movement. Metaphorically, it would be a powerful symbol of division and entirely contrary to the spirit of the Good Friday Agreement. The Police Federation in Northern Ireland has also warned it would make police officers "sitting ducks for terrorists". Moreover, the Irish government will never agree to this course. With the EU in their corner, there is effectively zero chance of this happening.

2. Northern EU-land

The second option is to actually keep Northern Ireland inside the EU: offering it so-called "special status". This would avoid the difficulty of enforcing the border and even accord with the wishes of 56 per cent of the Northern Irish electorate who voted to Remain in the EU. Crucially, it would see Northern Ireland able to retain the £600m a year it currently receives from the EU. This is pushed by Sinn Fein and does have a powerful logic, but it would be a massive embarrassment for the British Government and lead to Scotland (and possibly London?) demanding similar treatment.

3. Natural assets

The third option is that suggested by the Irish government in the Times story today, namely a soft border with customs and passport controls at embarkation points on the island of Ireland, using the Irish Sea as a hard border (or certainly a wet one). This option is in play, if for no other reason than the Irish government is suggesting it. Again, unionists will be unhappy as it requires Britain to treat the island of Ireland as a single entity with border and possibly customs checks at ports and airports. There is a neat administrate logic to it, but it means people travelling from Northern Ireland to "mainland" Britain would need to show their passports, which will enrage unionists as it effectively makes them foreigners.

4. Irish reunification

Unpalatable as that would be for unionists, the fourth option is simply to recognise that Northern Ireland is now utterly anomalous and start a proper conversation about Irish reunification as a means to address the border issue once and for all. This would see both governments acting as persuaders to try and build consent and accelerate trends to reunify the island constitutionally. This would involve twin referendums in both Northern Ireland and the Republic (a measure allowed for in the Good Friday Agreement). Given Philip Hammond is warning that transitional arrangements could last three years, this might occur after Brexit in 2019, perhaps as late as the early 2020s, with interim arrangements in the meantime. Demographic trends pointing to a Catholic-nationalist majority in Northern Ireland would, in all likelihood require a referendum by then anyway. The opportunity here is to make necessity the mother of invention, using Brexit to bring Northern Ireland’s constitutional status to a head and deal decisively with the matter once and for all.

In short, ministers have no easy options, however time is now a factor and they will soon have to draw the line on, well, drawing the line.

Kevin Meagher is a former special adviser at the Northern Ireland Office and author of "A United Ireland: Why unification is inevitable and how it will come about"

Kevin Meagher is associate editor of Labour Uncut and a former special adviser at the Northern Ireland office. 

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