TIM MONTGOMERIE'S BEHAVIOUR IS HIGHLY SUSPICIOUS

Defect

by Colin Liddell

Recently Tim Montgomerie, a prominent Conservative commentator and the founder of the influential Conservative site ConservativeHome made headlines by defecting to ReformUK. This is not minor news because Montgomerie is incredibly influential on the Centre-Right of British politics. He is one of the people who make the weather, so to speak.

Here is £30-million-a-year-in-losses "news" site GB News reporting Montie's defection:

"Montgomerie, who also co-founded the Centre for Social Justice, has revealed his decision was triggered by last week's record immigration figures.

'It's been coming for a long time', Montgomerie told GB News, explaining his decision to leave the Conservative Party. 'The final straw for me, really, was last Thursday's immigration numbers. How many times have you been sat with a Tory over the last few years and they said they were controlling immigration?' he said."

Wow, what an upstanding guy, burning his boats with the Tories on a matter of principle!

Except there are a few flies in the ointment.

First of all, the notion that someone like Montgomerie was shocked or outraged by the immigration figures, just like the ignorant boomers who read his site of watch GBNews, is laughable. This is someone who has had the inside track in the Tory Party since 2005, and in fact closely identified himself with the party. This included a close association with Boris Johnson, now regarded as the main architect of the "doors off" immigration policy that led to those shockingly high immigration numbers.

In fact, Montgomerie actually served as Johnson's "social justice adviser" -- yes "social justice" FFS! -- when Johnson became Prime Minister in 2019.

Next, it has to be emphasised that he is deserting the Conservative Party after a candidate his site strongly supported in the recent leadership election won.

Here is ConservativeHome on October 15th:

"Kemi’s courage in her convictions, her consistency and her willingness to do the right thing even when it is the unpopular thing is why we need her as the Conservative party leader. She has my full support."

And here is ConservativeHome on October 22nd:

"It is also going to take a leader of rare qualities: someone who understands the scale and nature of the task, who can enthuse a vanquished party, who can articulate Conservative values in a compelling way, who has the toughness and resilience for the bruising business of opposition and who can set out a thoughtful programme for the next Tory government. For me, that person is Kemi Badenoch."

There are countless other fawning puff pieces to be found.

Another key booster for Badenoch was ConHome's self-conducted polls, which consistently put her well in front of the other contenders, even though less influential Tory websites had quite different numbers.

In August this was ConHome's poll:

Badenoch 33%, Jenrick 19% - cooked poll?

Notice the wording "perennial favourite."

Then in September they ran another "self-conducted" poll, again showing an insurmountable lead, the implicit message being "give in guys, she's going to win." 

Badenoch 34%, Jenrick 18% - she can't lose!

As the Tory Party is disproportionately made up of self-seeking opportunists, headlining Kemi's "enormous lead" would also attract additional money, influence, and endorsements, creating a kind of "self-fulfilling prophecy" effect.

Interestingly, other, less influential Tory sites had trouble locating this supposed "enormous lead." A September poll on PopCon put Jenrick on 38% to Badenoch's 34%. This was probably a lot more accurate, although you can already see the "booster" effect closing the gap on Jenrick.

As for actual personal endorsements, Montgomerie went for Tom Tugendhat, someone who was widely seen as weak on immigration. 

So, to sum up, Montgomerie was backing an "immigration wet" while his site was playing up and publicising the "inevitability" of a Nigerian "anchor baby" becoming leader.

As Daniel Barge pointed out at the time, Badenoch was the candidate best calculated to structurally undermine the Conservative Party's attempt to hang on to or win back its core voters.

This was amply demonstrated today, during Prime Minister's Questions in the UK Parliament, with even Labour PM Sir Kier Starmer able to lambast Badenoch as an "open borders" radical:

"She was the cheerleader, she was the one urging on the removal of the caps for work visas… she championed it, she advocated it, record number of immigration!"

Yes, this is the same person that Montgomerie's site repeatedly supported during the Conservative leadership election against Jenrick, a candidate who actually had a reasonably tight record on immigration, and whose election would have strengthened the Conservative Party where it needed it most, namely on its piss-poor immigration record -- caused of course by Montgomerie's old boss Boris Johnson. 

None of Montgomerie's behaviour is natural, so we should look for some other explanation for it besides his own statements. Maybe it has something to do with the reason Johnson was forced to fire him as an adviser back in 2020.

At that time Montgomerie was caught idiotically aligning himself with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who, as we now know, is Vladmir Putin's pet poodle.

As the FT reported at the time: 

"A senior Downing Street adviser in the run-up to the election was accused by Labour on Monday night of making 'despicable' comments after he said Boris Johnson wanted to forge a 'special relationship' with Viktor Orban, Hungary’s authoritarian prime minister.

Tim Montgomerie, Mr Johnson’s social justice adviser until last month’s election, praised Hungary’s 'interesting early thinking' on 'the limits of liberalism' and suggested the two prime ministers shared a populist agenda. [...]

BuzzFeed News uncovered the remarks in a video of the event posted by the Danube Institute, the think-tank that hosted the event on December 17."

Yes, being an "Orbanist," as Montgomerie clearly was here, is simply code for being a Putinist or a creature of Putin, whether it is through bribery, blackmail, or conviction; and Putin, remember, is no better on immigration than Tom Tugendhat, Kemi Badenoch, or Boris Johnson. In fact, he's a lot worse thanks to the desperate labour shortages caused by his stupid war.

It thus makes perfect sense that Montgomerie has defected to a party funded by suspicious dark money that is boosted by a fake news channel GB News that is funded by Kremlin-linked money. And all this has nothing to do with genuine concern about mass immigration, because if that were true, Montgomerie wouldn't have directed ConHome to push Kemi Badenoch, someone who increasingly looks like a useful idiot put into her position in order to destroy the Conservative Party, or at least greatly weaken it. 

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Colin Liddell is the Chief Editor of Neokrat and the author of Interviews & Obituaries, a collection of encounters with the dead and the famous. As there is absolutely zero reward for honest content like this, support his work by buying his book here (USA), here (UK), and here (Australia). or by taking out a paid subscription on his Substack.