They have been described as the “biggest threat to Boris Johnson’s authority since he came to power”, with the potential to cause as much trouble as Jacob Rees-Mogg’s backbench power base during the Brexit negotiations. Led by Jake Berry, the former northern powerhouse minister, more than 50 Conservative MPs in the north of England, Scottish borders and north Wales, have written to the prime minister demanding a roadmap out of the coronavirus lockdown and investment to address the north-south divide that governments “have failed to tackle for decades”.
Taking a leaf out of Rees-Mogg’s influential European Research Group (ERG), the hard Brexiters who ultimately cost Theresa May her job, the MPs call themselves the Northern Research Group (NRG). They will commission research on their issues of concern and have reached out to unions. Like the ERG, the group has the potential to be another party within a party; it has 55 members, 20 more than previously thought. The 41 signatories to the letter (14 remain anonymous and are thought to include serving members of the government) include four former cabinet ministers, the former Brexit secretary David Davis, the former housing minister Esther McVey, the former Scotland secretary David Mundell, and the former Wales secretary and current deputy chair of the ERG, David Jones. As with the ERG, the group appears tightly organised and has been meeting for several weeks via the video chat site Zoom. It has now presented its policy goals – a rebalancing of infrastructure funds, with demands for priority investment in a trans-Pennine “Northern Powerhouse Rail”, strategic development corridors, and ultrafast broadband. William Wragg, the MP for Hazel Grove and an NRG member, said the coronavirus pandemic had only exacerbated the need for “a good deal for the north from the government”, adding: “This isn’t about giving government a tough time. The prime minister shares our collective priority. But there are compelling and constructive arguments we, as a group of northern MPs, can make to government about how it delivers on its promise to level up the north.” If Johnson has concerns about a power base to rival Downing Street, he did not show them when he discussed the NRG with Berry a few weeks ago. “He was absolutely supportive. I think his exact words were ‘I order you to go out and set this group up’. I don’t know how he feels about it this week, but I think at the time he thought it was brilliant,” Berry told the Spectator last week. Some believe Covid-19 has fuelled the NRG. “Many of these MPs are new, have hardly been in Westminster and haven’t been exposed to the discipline of the whip’s office,” a former government insider said. “They’ve also seen, after the internal market bill rebellion, that it doesn’t take 40 backbenchers to get a response. This idea that Johnson could have an iron grip on things because of his 80-seat majority has been proven not to be the case. [There were] only a handful of MPs rebelling on that bill, but Downing Street reacted immediately.”
If the NRG follows the ERG model Johnson may find himself up against a group with a slick media operation to rival Downing Street and the potential to vote as a large backbench bloc. The group supports devolved governments and wants mayors to have “tax and spend powers” so they can drive change in the north of England, something that may be anathema to Johnson after his bruising battle with the Greater Manchester mayor, Andy Burnham. Berry described the group as “a trade union for northern MPs” and said he had talked to the Trades Union Congress about joint projects. “If that ruffles feathers in the Tory party? Boohoo,” he told the Spectator.