A Sit Down: Sephronar in Government

The Leader of a Resurgent Tories sits down with the Independent to discuss their time in Government so far, as they seek to pursue an agenda that carefully tears down the remnants of years of Solidarity rule.

Hello Sephronar, it is so good to have you back! It is wild to think last time we spoke you had a long shot chance of Government, and now you're Deputy Prime Minister, and quite a successful one at that. So on that note, I do have to ask what do you think has changed in the last 5 or so months since you became Leader of the Tories, which has led to this massive turnaround as a now major and resurgent player in British politics again?12 June 2023

Good morning, and what a pleasure it is to be here again with you - I throughly enjoyed our conversation last time, and the article you put together out of it I thought was brilliantly written.

Of course a lot has changed since then, we are now at the heart of a Government - something that many thought we had no chance of being, given that we have no natural ideological partner currently in politics that is bit enough to ensure we end up in Government; but something has changed. I keep saying the word ‘consensus’ because that is what has changed - we have come to a consensus with the Labour Party, and it has been an absolutely brilliant experience so far. They’re fantastic colleagues, always working hard and doing what they can to get the job done - I’m only sorry that it took us this long to get a GroKo Government in the first place! Thank you also for your comments on being Deputy Prime Minister, I appreciate that it is always nice to hear as often in politics you only hear the negative side of things, I’m keen to hear why you think that too.

I think to be frank, the change that we have experienced in the last 5 or so months is clearly a different style of Leadership - I do what I can to ensure that everyone has a voice in the party, no one is ignored, so we all work together to build on our successes.

What blows me away is that this time just twelve months ago we were only at 14.4% in the polls - we are now 25.69% a massive bounce over over 11% in that time - while I don’t take all the credit because it is in large part due to everyone pulling together, my leadership and direction as well as my penchant for administration has certainly helped. I have also pushed to reinvigorate the party’s image primarily - this is a good thing to do when a new leader is elected anyway, but especially relevant in my case, and I think that I succeeded at that given we are now in a government coalition with Labour; something that many thought is, and certainly would have been before my time, impossible.

Of course you can’t win with everyone, but the majority see what you have described - a now major and resurgent player in British politics - I hope that more people do come around to our way of thinking, we are always looking for new members!

You talk about this consensus politics, we know that you have been working with the Opposition on a number of things, perhaps an extension of this consensus politics you are trying to create.

Could you elaborate on these collaborations?

Yeah absolutely, while the Opposition of course needs to do what they need to do in opposing the government I also believe that there is room for us to work together on common sense proposals as well - there are a number of notable things so far, and we have voted for a number of bills proposed by the opposition too, but notably I would say the work that we have been doing with model-kyosanto and their plan to implement the results of the Lords Committee on Institutional Abuse, an initiative which is regretful to be needed in the first place but is sadly very much needed. I pay tribute to kyosanto for this hard work and I look forward to seeing this pass both Houses unanimously.

On top of this, we have gotten work started on a cross-party defence committee to review defence spending, a cross-party House of Lords reform committee to review the way our Upper House works, and I have personally been working on a cross-party Budget Committee to ensure better budgetary accountability and a cross-party committee that I set up after speaking with the Leader of the Opposition to look into mental health reform and the services that are available.

We are so much better as a nation and a world when we work together - debate is healthy and should be encouraged, but division for division's sake gets us nowhere. That is exactly why I am proud that this Government is leading the way on these initiatives, and is doing far more than any Government before it to work across the political divide. But that is the nature of this coalition - we are working across the political divide constantly and striving for consensus, and that is something to be proud of.

Speaking on perhaps some of the more divisive elements of this term, your proposed Telecommunications Reform saw a mild backbencher revolt, and the revival of your Confidence and Supply Partner, while the Israel Sanctions Bill was authored by a Labour backbencher.

This is despite of course your track record this term of relatively uncontroversial legislation, but these two Bills have perhaps demonstrated that some cracks are showing as we get along. What are your thoughts on this?

I'm not sure about 'cracks' given that the Government is united on both of these issues - in the case of the Israel Sanctions Bill, this is a Private Members Bill which all members are entitled to submit regardless of their party. It does not have Labour party backing, and that is what counts here - and I am confident that it will be thrown out by a majority of the Commons when it comes to its final division in the next few days. Of course I would rather such a Bill was never proposed in the first place given how flawed it is, but I defend each and every member's right to submit Private Members Bills; it does not reflect on the Government that members of its constituent parties have differing opinions on some things, as a matter of fact that is precisely what makes us stronger. The Bill was never submitted for Government approval because it was clear it would not receive it, and the Labour Party did not sponsor it either - so I am clear that our partnership with their party is stronger than every.

Many said that this Government would never even last a month - well, here we are two months on and we are stronger than ever; I am genuinely excited for what the next few months of this Government can produce, and I have written a few Bills recently too that I am looking forward to seeing introduced into the Commons.

When it comes to the Telecomms Bill that I wrote, I think it is overzealous to describe it as a 'backbencher revolt' - the principle behind the Bill is of course in the coaltion deal, but the exact method of how we achieve this was subject to debate. That debate took place, with some point out issues of the Bill and I listened to those issues and withdrew the Bill to be reworked; that work is currently taking place with our partners and I look forward to seeing a new Bill introduced soon. There is often little point in being stubborn in politics - it achieves nothing and makes you look inflexible, when in reality no one party speaks for the majority of the electorate here; so if I can rework a Bill with other parties to ensure that it does speak for a majority then we are better for it as a political system and as a nation.

Of course they are not necessarily cracks, but they have definitely been pushed as such by some individuals who are trying to drive a wedge issue.

Moving onto some of your frontbenchers, there are a lot of new faces! Who would you choose as some standouts of this Government as new and rising stars in the Conservative Party and Government as a whole?

Yes absolutely and I understand and respect the Opposition’s need and duty to ‘oppose’ - the clue is in the name after all - I don’t blame them for trying to spin whatever narrative they need to in an attempt to try to come out on top and for Solidarity to attempt to drive their natural coalition partner back towards them. But they should perhaps think before they speak on some of these things as it can have unintended effects - look at the article the Leader of the Opposition penned recently where he questioned my Deputy Leader’s ‘LGBT Credentials’, this was a disgraceful accusation and actually pushed Labour away more than it drew them closer. I believe this will have similar effects on the electorate at large too - people don’t really want their politicians to just sling mud about, they want them to deliver and to have a vision for improving their lives.

As for your question, that’s a good one - and we absolutely do, and I believe we have a winning team that have been working hard on both sides to deliver for this country. I of course couldn’t answer without first mentioning my Deputy Leaders - the Foreign Secretary and Secretary of State for Health - who have been hard at work on treaties and healthcare Bills, as well as the Secretary of State for Devolved Affairs for their hard work in working with the devolved governments. In addition to them, the names that particularly jump out are that of the Secretary of State for EFRA and the work they have been doing on export finance among other things, as well as the Minister of State for the Commonwealth and their important initiatives on protecting our war graves. Of course that’s just our side of the aisle - the Prime Minister has been hard at work at the top ensuring we all follow the direction of the coalition agreement and might I say he is doing a great job at inspiring us all and keeping morale high - and I would also like to pay tribute to the Secretary of State for HCLG, their knowledge on bill-writing is astonishing really and they have been a big help to me personally.

A lot of names - but what that says to me is that we have a winning team dedicated to delivering for the United Kingdom.

The article questioning the 'LGBT credentials' is perhaps similar to when Solidarity attacked former Prime Minister SapphireWork on her LGBT credentials, which perhaps demonstrates that they have no new material!

Though, perhaps the divide between Solidarity and Labour is beginning to change with rumours swirling that the Leader of the Opposition is no more!

Circling back to your team, we know the Devolved Secretary has been hard at work with funding projects in devolved nations, this is despite of course the ideological divide between your own Government and the Government's of Wales and Northern Ireland. Perhaps we should avoid discussing Scotland considering it is your coalition partner that is failing Scotland!

Absolutely, it was disgraceful - I cannot even begin to imagine how that must make any LGBT person feel, it is a terrible comment from any person let alone a very senior politician; and the fact that this is somewhat of a pattern emerging from the Solidarity Party is even more troubling. It is pride month currently, and the fact that the current largest party in this nation is attacking LGBT people publicly is deeply concerning to me. The British Public, not to mention BlueEarlGrey and SapphireWork, are still awaiting an apology from their party for both of these instances.

I had heard rumours along these lines yes, and I do wonder if this brewing scandal had something to do with it. We cannot have a Leader of the Opposition that is so openly dismissive of peoples identities such as he was to the Foreign Secretary's - and the fact that he was being ejected from Parliament more and more frequently for his views and behaviour recently shows perhaps how things were already going downhill for the Leader of the Opposition. However nothing has been said publicly yet, so we can only assume that he is still in position.

I'm not sure that it is right to conflate the two - our devolved parties, while of course affiliated and associated with the national parties, do have separate identities - nationally I see a Labour party that is working hard and delivering alongside ourselves for the British public. Just look at our legislative programme so far! This term we have had 8 Labour-Government Bills on the docket, and 9 Conservative-Government Bills on the docket - 17 in total, which is a huge increase compared to the previous government at this point in the term last term who only had 9 Bills on the docket in total. This is consistent with the fact that the Official Oppostion have only put 7 Bills on the docket so far this term.

It is clear that the Government as a whole is delivering for the British public, and that is why we now represent 53.86% of the country according to the last set of polls; 55.99% if you factor in our Confidence and Supply Partner Unity as well! I think that is a fantastic endorsement, and I encourage any member of any political party to consider switching sides now to become a part of the movement.

It is clear that you are commanding a large majority in the polls, something we haven't seen in quite some time from a Government, especially not one that is technically governing in minority!

On the legislation front for my final question, what are your plans for the remainder of the term considering we are moving into a more quieter time as parliamentarians perhaps take some time off for the summer?

That's very true - however due to mergers and the by-election we have expanded that minority and are only a couple of seats off of a majority - but with Unity our Confidence and Supply Partner, and by working with other parties such as the Liberal Democrats in good faith I believe we are able to pursue our legislative agenda with confidence; and of course, by governing with consensus we are all richer for it.

While some Parliamentarians may be taking time off, the Government certainly will not be - all Cabinet Ministers will be working tirelessly to deliver our promises as set out in the King's Speech, and we will of course still be turning up for Minister's Questions and hopefully doing a great job at being held to account as for the most part we have so far. I've certainly enjoyed my time in Government so far - I haven't been a major part of a Government since I was Chancellor in 2015 and a lot has changed since then, but it has been a great experience being able to improve peoples lives and work hard to give back to the country that made me who I am today!

Well thanks as usual for speaking with us, hoping you are able to catch a break sometime over the summer holidays!

Well that's been Deputy Prime Minister Sephronar!

A Sit Down will return with a special guest next time so stay tuned.