All Out War: The Full Story of How Brexit Sank Britain’s Political Class. Tim Shipman
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Nick Clegg called him ‘a loopy individual’.
But no other special adviser in the coalition years bent a department to their will like Cummings did; no other worked out their goals and drove through reforms as effectively in the face of widespread civil service opposition. No other special adviser wrote a 240-page thesis on their particular area of expertise (‘some thoughts on education and political priorities’) which offered learned observations about Thucydides and statistical modelling via The Brothers Karamazov. Cummings was a true Renaissance man, combining highbrow humanity with a taste for medieval Whitehall warfare. If no other special adviser sparked such loathing, none generated the same levels of loyalty either.
Cummings’ fearlessness in the face of authority had been forged in dark corners of the world. How many others, after graduating from Oxford with a First in Ancient and Modern History in 1994, would move to Russia for three years to help set up a new airline flying from Samara, on the Volga, to Vienna? KGB threats were issued, the airline only got one passenger, and the pilot took off without him. How many others after winning the north-east referendum would have retreated for two years to a bunker he and his father had built under their farm in Durham to read science and history in an attempt to understand the world?2
One of Cummings’ heroes was James Carville, Bill Clinton’s legendary message man, who revelled in the sobriquet ‘the Ragin’ Cajun’ on account of his fiery temper and Louisiana roots, a man immortalised on film in The War Room, a documentary on Clinton’s come-from-behind win in 1992. ‘Dom watched The War Room, I would guess, forty to fifty times,’ a friend said. ‘He would sing the theme music. The missing Dom years were basically spent in a bunker under the Pennines watching The War Room on repeat.’
There is much of Carville in Cummings’ approach. When his involvement in the campaign was revealed under the headline ‘Tory bovver boy leads “No” fight’, a Conservative aide remarked admiringly, ‘Dom knows how to win, and he doesn’t care who he pisses off in the process.’3 The man himself put it this way: ‘I am not motivated by people in SW1 liking me. This is often confused with having a personality that likes fighting with people.’4
Cummings had never stopped being Eurosceptic, but his three years in government had radicalised him. The EU was, he believed, like much of Whitehall ‘programmed to fail’: ‘It’s a crap 1950s idea, it cannot work.’ It was also stifling his efforts to reform education. In a blog written in 2014, Cummings’ rage at the impotence of British ministers was vividly demonstrated: ‘In order to continue the pretence that cabinet government exists, all these EU papers are circulated in the red boxes. Nominally, these are “for approval”. They have a little form attached for the secretary of state to tick. However, because they are EU papers, this “approval” process is pure Potemkin village. If a cabinet minister replies saying – “I do not approve, this EU rule is stupid and will cost a fortune” – then someone from the Cabinet Office calls their private office and says, “Did your minister get pissed last night, he appears to have withheld approval on this EU regulation.” If the private office replies saying “No, the minister actually thinks this is barmy and he is withholding consent,” then [Ed] Llewellyn calls them to say “Ahem, old boy, the PM would prefer it if you lie doggo on this one.” In the very rare cases where a minister is so infuriated that he ignores Llewellyn, then [cabinet secretary Sir Jeremy] Heywood calls to explain to them that they have no choice but to approve, so please tick your box and send in your form, pronto. Game over.’5
With Cummings’ appointment, Elliott had picked someone with an almost unique combination of Euroscepticism, organisational nous and the rage to fight a winning campaign. Douglas Carswell believed the nascent ‘Out’ operation had now found the third of its ‘three indispensables’: ‘There were three people who if they hadn’t been born or didn’t exist, or weren’t central in the referendum campaign, it means we would have lost. Number one is Dominic Cummings, number two is Matthew Elliott, and number three is Daniel Hannan. Every single other person played an important role, but those three were vital.’
When he arrived, Cummings knew exactly what he wanted to do with the campaign. In May and June 2014 he had been hired by Elliott to do polling and focus groups on how an ‘Out’ campaign might position itself. The paper he wrote one friend called ‘the ur document of the campaign’. Cummings realised that the people and the views that would hold the key to a referendum victory were very far removed from the sensibilities of the London elite. He himself went to a fee-paying school, and in December 2011 had married Mary Wakefield, the deputy editor of the Spectator and daughter of Sir Humphry Wakefield, of Chillingham Castle in Northumberland. They lived in some comfort in Islington, the north London borough synonymous with the metropolitan moneyed classes. But Cummings remembered his upbringing in the provinces, rooted in the Durham yeoman class, and constructed his campaign plan accordingly.
A close ally said, ‘He found that people in market towns in the Midlands hate London, hate the elites, think more money should go to the NHS, hate bankers and are not very keen on foreigners. He found that Europe was deeply unpopular, but that if you wanted to reach people you had to talk about immigration and the NHS. This was a campaign that would be ruthlessly focused on people as they actually are. There are two sorts of political communications operators in this business. There are people who see the population as they would like them to be, and there are people who see the population, ruthlessly, as they actually are. There is the wishful-thinking element, and there is the winning element.’
When Cummings met Elliott in May 2015, ‘There was a road map already done.’ His campaign blueprint, chillingly prescient of what would come to pass two years later, was outlined in an article for The Times on 26 June 2014. He wrote: ‘The combination of immigration, benefits, and human rights dominates all discussion of politics and Europe. People think that immigration is “out of control” [and] puts public services under intolerable strain.’ Crucially, the ‘biggest change’ Cummings noticed from when he was fighting to keep Britain out of the euro was that ‘people now spontaneously connect the issue of immigration and the EU. The policy that they raise and discuss most is “the Australian points system for immigration” and many realise that membership of the EU makes this impossible … The second strongest argument for leaving is that “we can save a fortune and spend that money on the NHS or whatever we want” … On issue after issue they side with “let’s take back control” over “we gain more by sharing power”.’ Cummings concluded that the referendum choice would come down to ‘Do you fear economic disaster?’ against ‘the prize of controlling immigration and saving all the cash’.6 He saw the linkage between immigration and control as the key to a referendum victory.
And yet there are hints that he did not want to focus on migration to the detriment of other arguments. Four days later his blog appeared, in which the very first point he made was: ‘The official OUT campaign does not need to focus on immigration. The main thing it needs to say on immigration is “if you are happy with the status quo on immigration, then vote to stay IN”.’ Instead, he said, ‘The OUT campaign has one essential task – to neutralise the fear that leaving may be bad for jobs and living standards. This requires a grassroots movement based on small businesses.’
Cummings and Elliott were to work hard to enlist business support, but ultimately they failed to get the backing they hoped for. But Cummings did understand, even in 2014, that Cameron would struggle to neutralise immigration as an issue, and that outsiders like Nigel Farage might have a role to play alongside the formal campaign: ‘Immigration is now such a powerful dynamic in public opinion that a) no existing political force can stop people being so worried about it and … b) it is therefore not necessary for the main campaign to focus on it in a referendum (others will anyway) and focusing on it would alienate other crucial parts of the electorate.’7
Throughout 2015 Farage and Ukip complained that Cummings did not understand