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Rory Stewart: ‘The idea of leadership has become about fairytales’

Rory Stewart - Image credit: PA

Rory Stewart: ‘The idea of leadership has become about fairytales’

Rory Stewart has said that political leadership in the UK has become about “who can produce the most absurd and extravagant fairytales” in his first public event since Boris Johnson became prime minister. 

The former Conservative leadership challenger described the rhetoric surrounding Brexit as representing a “craving for sort of heroic vision which has little to do with the business of government”.

He also said he expects to be branded a “traitor” for voting against a no-deal Brexit and believes his reputation among Tories will be damaged for up to ten years for doing so.

Stewart made the comments during an interview with Guardian journalist Charlotte Higgins on the closing night of the Edinburgh International Book Festival.

He said: “In a way, what I'm about to do, which is to go back and vote against a no-deal Brexit, will mark me, in the eyes of many of my colleagues and many party members, as a traitor who's been trying to undermine the whole project. 

“And that would probably damage me for five or 10 years.”

The MP for Penrith and the Border said he felt “lonely” in the centre ground of politics while the House of Commons has become increasingly polarised between a “Conservative Party, which is now lining up behind Boris for a no-deal Brexit and Labour and the Lib Dems who are increasingly pushing for a second referendum and remain”.

Bemoaning the current state of political discourse, Stewart said people didn’t seem to want compromise, but instead wanted simple solutions. 

He said: “What we want to hear is Britain is great, that we're going to be different, that we're going to rip it up, we're going to have a no deal Brexit, we're going to launch into a new world”. 

“We don't want problems. We want solutions. We want optimism. We want cheerfulness. We don’t want all of these details.”

Answering a question about whether Boris Johnson is similar to right-wing populists around the world, Stewart said: “I'll try to be as straightforward as I can while also explaining that he is my party leader and I'm a conservative MP” before going on to compare the Prime Minister with celebrity leaders such as Donald Trump and Ukrainian comedian-turned-president Volodymyr Zelensky. 

On Boris Johnson’s leadership victory, he said: “Quite clearly one of the things that made him very successful is that he is a celebrity. Just much, much more famous than anyone else.”

“One of the great things that Trump has or that a comedian in Ukraine can have is just celebrity, just being more famous,” Stewart said. 

Stewart also mounted a fierce defence of the union against “reductive” Scottish nationalism. 

He said: “In the end, nationalism is reductive. It always involves reducing the size of a country. It always involves pretending that there is a big, simple solution."

Asked whether he thought the union would survive in the long term, Stewart said: “I really hope so, because for me the United Kingdom represents complexity, a compromise, trade-offs. It's an argument against oversimplification.”

He went on to say: “That's why I'm against the no deal Brexit, it's the same thing.

“No deal is the same - it's a negative: ‘Nope, we don't need them. We don't want the others, we're better off on our own. We don't want all the mess and complexity.’ 

“The mess and complexity is what makes us. 

It's reaching out. It's embracing. It's being a tumultuous, chaotic country that contains Glasgow and London. The contains the Highlands and Devon.

“That has that tension between Scottish and English and Welsh and Northern Irish. 

“That's actually what makes us. Without that we become terribly boring, terribly reduced as an enterprise.”

Commenting on whether he would again run for leader of the Conservative party if the opportunity arose, Stewart said: “I'm 46 now and I have to think about the next 25 years – how can I be most useful, what can I do for this country? 

“And it may be that spending the next 15, 20 years of my life trying to be prime minister may not be the most useful contribution I can make.”

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