National's Brash Faction

After hearing National Party bloggers talk about the ACT leadership issue – and National leaning journos and commentators discuss the succession routes for Don Brash (member of the National Party) to take over from ACT, and for John Banks (member of the National Party) to run in ACT held Epsom – I am wondering who exactly is more nervous about a Key Government post the 2011 election.

My co-blogger Blair, who I respect, has put forth his ideas for why he supports this idea here.
I disagree but that is why we blog, to have opinions. I am going to put forth my own spin on this.

Why are National supporters so keen to see Brash as leader of ACT?
We all know that many Nat MPs have their political careers to thank for Brash resurrecting National from the dire awfulness of the Bill English years. Bill was hardly the best leader – the fact that he rolled Jenny Shipley before her time didn’t help the fact either. I remember being in attendance at a Young Nats conference where she spoke not too long after Bill took over. The murmurs from many of those listening to her were that she was popular and that Bill dragging the party towards the centre was painful for too many. The pollsters and public agreed and we all know that Bills election result for National was record breaking for all the wrong reasons.

Brash come to National and installed policies that were lifted from the ACT manifesto. Hell, the guy was only 45,506 votes (and $400k in unlawful campaign spending) behind Labour!
It is hard to believe that National Party supporters were ungrateful for his massive contribution to National during the short time he was leader.

When the younger and politically “easy to sell” John Key took over, suddenly the proud party of Brash and Shipley lurched in the same direction as they did under the faltering Bill English, and followed that up by making Bill deputy! This was a very strong statement that the years of following a robust right wing policy platform were over and that the 9 years of Labour needed to be broken up - whatever the cost.

It is very difficult to imagine that all these Brash and Shipley supporting Nats all had a 1984 type epiphany and decided that Brash was the enemy and Key was who they all supported. It doesn’t add up at all. This lends to the theory that this isn’t the case at all and because the populist Key faction are in control of the party at present, a more subtle means of bringing Brash back to Parliament was in order. Especially after 3 years of entrenching Labour policies like Working for Families and shutting the door on the debate about nuclear ships and the race based Maori seats – there was a huge concern that post election 2011, Key was going to stay on the same centrist path.

What the Brash faction needed is a political vehicle to bring their boy back into the race. Rodney seemed vulnerable in Epson, but as polling seemed to have been run by Hooton, who is a cheerleader for John Banks, there were no independent polls spelling out what was the situation for ACT or Rodney. Indeed all it took was a few well placed news statements, spread by anti Rodney enthusiasts and sympathetic journalists to bring about near pandemonium for Rodney and ACT HQ who I have been told were bemused that National supporters were trying to bring in a non member to run the party in the place of Rodney.

The rationale for the Brash faction is that they would expend little political energy installing Brash into a party that is already very sympathetic to him without the need to create a new brand, gathering new members and building a new structure. The result would supposedly bring ACT higher polls and a result that would mean Brash would be in a position to demand concessions from John Key and be in a unique position to place major roadblocks in the way of John continuing on his centrist policy platform for the years ahead. National’s Brash faction is in a situation where they are in a party that they cannot support and yet cannot bring themselves to join ACT – unless they took their leader with them.

The only way for the Brash faction is to now look elsewhere. From early reports it seems that the ACT board will reject this proposal from the Brash faction and there are not enough votes for this to be forced through. The presumptuousness of non members to expect to destabilise another party in order to fulfil an agenda they were too weak to fight within their own party is dreadful. If the Brash faction wanted to force John Key to live up to the founding principles of the National Party they should have done this themselves inside the National Party and fought a public battle against the Key populists instead of try to kill the ACT brand. This shows a complete lack of regard for other people and other parties and epitomises the arrogance of many within the National Party.

You could say that no person inside ACT is bigger than the party and you’d be right. But Brash isn’t a member. On that basis alone there is nothing stopping Rodney Hide attempting to roll John Key for his limpwristed centrist Labour-Lite policies that have entrenched Labour policies and make token gestures towards reducing taxation but instead borrowing beyond our means.

The question is, when the membership of National gets sick of the populism – who will emerge as the person who will take the fight for smaller Government to the voters of New Zealand? Will National be cursed again by the need to be liked and popular in place of good policies?