James Cleverly has come out hard against Keir Starmer’s government, calling the decision to hand sovereignty of the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean back to Mauritius “weak, weak, weak!”
This is all very convenient for reminding MPs and Tory party members, who are in the midst of deciding who they want to be the next Conservative leader, of his credentials as a former foreign secretary. (He’s the only one out of the four current candidates to have held not just one but two of the four great offices of state – a fact he repeated at length during this week’s conference). It is slightly less convenient given that while he was holding that role, the UK announced that it would open negotiations with Mauritius over that very issue. In a ministerial statement in November 2022, Cleverly said the aim was to reach an agreement with Mauritius by early 2023. The apparently “weak, weak, weak!” move announced today, therefore, is essentially a continuation of the policy he himself set into motion.
It took approximately an hour and a half after Cleverly tweeted his condemnation of Labour for this rather awkward fact to be pointed out on social media, where it has now spread with predictable ferocity. But put aside the geopolitical debate over whether Britain can afford to relinquish sovereignty over a remote but strategically important archipelago aside at a time when western allies are struggling over how to respond to China’s dominance. There’s an interesting question here. Did someone running to be the leader the opposition, and potentially a future prime minister one day, genuinely forget that he had initiated talks over the handover less than two years ago? And if so, how much does it matter?
Coming straight from the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham, which was essentially a four-day beauty pageant for the leadership contenders, I think this reveals a few things about Cleverly – and where he sits in this race. The first is about Cleverly’s view of civil servants and the British state, which puts him at odds with some of his rivals. While Kemi Badenoch was happily joking to a room full of attendees that she thinks five to ten per cent of civil servants (around 50,000 people) should be in prison, Cleverly was striking a far more elevated and conciliatory tone. He has talked about his experience working with rather than against officials in both the Foreign Office and Home Office, and in doing so getting better results (“Bad officers blame their soldiers, bad ministers blame the civil service”). Those who have worked with him in both roles back up that view – they praise his ability to listen to advice and to delegate in order to get things done.
The dispute over the Chagos Islands has been going on for decades. The deal announced today – a deal which, again, is the result of a policy reversal initiated by Cleverly – crucially maintains the UK-US airbase on Diego Garcia for 99 years, which is considered critical in terms of global security. It’s not hard to see how this compromise could appeal to Foreign Office officials tasked with trying to find a long-term solution and secure the Diego Garcia base for the future. It’s also not hard to see how these officials could make the case to a new (and, let’s be clear, relatively inexperienced) Foreign Secretary, be that Foreign Secretary James Cleverly or David Lammy. (Notably the negotiations were discontinued when David Cameron took over the role.)
It is therefore perfectly possible that Cleverly didn’t think too hard about this issue when it was one of hundreds to land on his desk, and was content to defer to the advice of his experts. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. A minister who can work with the civil servants in their department is far more effective than one who goes to war with them as a matter of principle. But the problem is, Cleverly isn’t a minister anymore. He’s a Tory leadership contender, and therefore his priority is not making the case of messy geopolitical compromises but showcasing his ability both to attack Labour and to look tough. Handed an opportunity to do both at once – denouncing a Labour foreign policy decision and burnishing his hawkish credentials as one of the candidates with the biggest focus on security – he took it.
This has obviously proved an error. Not only does Cleverly look ridiculous for condemning a policy he conceived of, but it’s brought his record as foreign secretary into the leadership debate in a more critical light. Many Tories view his attitude to China in that time with suspicion. There is a sense among some China hawks that, like Rishi Sunak, Cleverly’s approach failed to be tough enough on a power they deem an existential threat to British interests. On issues such as pausing sanctions on Chinese officials, or the row over allowing Chinese diplomats accused of beating up pro-democracy Hong Kong protesters at a consulate in Manchester to return home, Cleverly’s time in the Foreign Office disappointed some of his Conservative colleagues.
Now he is running for the leadership as much more of a China hawk. So far, this discrepancy hasn’t been highlighted. Cleverly’s experience in the Foreign Office has been viewed by MPs (and, according to my conversations, by members too) as a plus rather than a minus. But with this gaffe over the Chagos Islands drawing attention to his record, this could be about to change. This may end up more damaging than the usual Twitter spat.
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