EXCLUSIVE: Brexit is in peril and Keir Starmer’s Government is going to drive Britain off a cliff, warns the Kemi Badenoch ally preparing for a national rescue mission
Tory MP Alex Burgart fears Keir Starmer’s EU reset will fuel calls to rejoin the bloc (Image: Getty)
Alex Burghart swapped life as a medieval historian for the chance to make history as a political crusader and now he is preparing for nothing less than a national rescue mission for Britain. The 48-year-old is one of Kemi Badenoch’s closest allies and this key ideas-generator is confident she can lead a transformation of the country.
He talks with urgency, warning that Brexit is “in danger”, and predicting Sir Keir’s efforts to forge a closer relationship with the European Union will lead to a push to fully rejoin. Getting closer to Brussels, he argues, means “giving up all control over the regulations which are used in this country”.
Britain’s europhiles, he adds, will say: “We’re taking all their rules but we have no say. We should be back at the table and that’s why we need to rejoin the EU.”
Is a referendum before the next election possible? That would be the biggest Labour u-turn yet. The PM has repeatedly ruled out reversing Brexit and the Labour manifesto pledges “no return to the single market, the customs union, or freedom of movement”. But Mr Burghart says: “You know as well as I do that these are crazy political times and I wouldn’t rule anything out. If Keir Starmer thinks a referendum will save his skin, I wouldn’t be surprised if he will call one”.
His warm, book-filled Westminster office looks like a don’s study but he cannot wait for the chance to escape Opposition and get back into Government.
“Here we are,” he says, “with a failing, very Left-wing Government that doesn’t really care about our country’s history; doesn’t understand how to run the public finances and is going to drive us off a cliff. And we’ve got this inspirational, very strong, proud woman who is our opportunity to turn things around.”
A diehard Kemi-ite, he describes her as the type of Tory leader he had longed to see at the helm of the party of Churchill and Thatcher.
“She is someone who is incredibly honest and direct… She will tell people what she thinks they need to hear rather than what she thinks they want to hear. That’s the sort of politician I’ve been looking for, to get behind, for a long time.”
If the Conservatives can oust Labour, he expects it will have to embark on a rescue mission.
“We can already see the situation is going to be very bad,” he says. “National debt is going to be enormous, and taxes are going to be very high and people [will be] understandably even more frustrated than they are today. It’s going to be a huge job.”But he looks forward to the challenge, which clearly kindles memories of Margaret Thatcher’s arrival in Downing Street.
“The only good thing about this is that 1970s-style problems require 1980s-style solutions,” he says.
Does he really think Mrs Badenoch can become prime minister? He does not miss a beat.
“Of course she can because she has the vision and she has the can-do spirit and she has the practicality to make it all work. I think she is the best hope for our country.
“What we have to do is give our country hope again and I think Kemi is the person to do that.”
Mr Burghart, the son of two teachers who was the first person in his family to go to university, has strong credentials as a Conservative with a social conscience. When teaching at King’s College, London, he wrote to then-Leader of the Opposition David Cameron, telling him, “I think you’re going to be the next Prime Minister,” and offering to help on education policy.
This led to a post at the Department for Education, working on child protection, and he wrestled with some of the thorniest issues facing society at the Centre for Social Justice.
His stood against Jeremy Corbyn in the rock solid Labour seat of Islington North in 2015 and got on well with the bearded socialist.
He remembers: “We used to talk most days whilst I was on the campaign trail. He was always very pleasant to me but I was absolutely no threat to him whatsoever.”
Mr Corbyn won by more than 21,000 votes, but Mr Burghart – who had pounded the streets with his wife, Hermione – thought his rival’s brand of politics were on the way out.
However, “a few months later he was leader of the Labour party and it felt utterly surreal”. And after the 2017 election, “it looked for a time as if Jeremy Corbyn might become prime minister”.
When Boris Johnson delivered the 2019 landslide, Mr Burghart thought: “That’s it, that’s the end of the hard Left.” But now he looks at the actions of Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves with undisguised horror.
“Literally everything is being damaged by this Government because the Government is fundamentally undermining our economy and is undermining our national sovereignty and our way of life,” he says.
He points to Labour delivering trade union-demanded pay hikes in the public sector while slapping VAT on school fees and hiking up business taxes and giving away the Chagos Islands.
Warning that Left-wingers are now running the country, he says: “You realise that just because these people don’t wear donkey jackets or have the CND badges on their lapels, this is the most Left-wing Government that we’ve had since the 1970s and we’re seeing 1970s-style effects – massive borrowing, massive spending, massive taxes, no growth, and this is going to end badly.”
Britain is no longer wealthy
The “hard truth” which Britain must accept, he argues, is we are “no longer a wealthy country”.
“That doesn’t mean we can’t be one again,” he says. “I fervently believe that we can but I think for a long time there’s been a sense, in the way that some people in power have behaved, that we’ll always be rich and it’s not true.”
When a country takes its wealth for granted, he says, politicians think they can increase regulations, make sweeping net zero commitments and increase taxes because “we’ll aways be rich”.
“This Government exemplifies that in the most extreme form,” he states.
He says it is an “injustice” when tax and regulation stop a young person getting a job.
Things are so tough that young adults are now saying, “Screw this, I’ll move to Dubai,” he claims. “It’s so wrong. We need all of these people to stay here and be part of the success story of the UK.”
The Tory dream of a “property owning democracy” is now “really under threat”, he argues, adding: “If people only think they stand a chance in life if they go and work in the public sector soon there won’t be much of a private sector – and the private sector pays for everything.”
Alex Burghart has deputised for Kemi Badenoch at PMQs, facing Angela Rayner (Image: -)
Mr Burghart won the Essex seat of Brentwood and Ongar in 2017, succeeding Sir Eric Pickles, and in 2019 Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s appointed him as a parliamentary private secretary.
“Boris is one of the most interesting and entertaining people you could ever spend time with,” he says. “He is not like anybody else.”
He worked on apprenticeships as a junior minister at the Department for Education but in July 2022, as the row over the PM’s handling of allegations about Tory MP Chris Pincher escalated, he joined Mrs Badenoch and three others in resigning and calling for Mr Johnson to step aside.
Is there any prospect of a political comeback for his former boss?
“You’d have to ask Boris that,” he says.
Alex Burghart in his Commons office (Image: Humphrey Nemar)
Benefits crisis and Labour’s Northern Ireland threat
Today, he serves in the Conservative engine room as Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. A key challenge for any Government is tackling the nation’s benefits bill.
“The purpose of unemployment benefit should be to help people get into work,” he says. “Deep down, most people know their first responsibility is to take care of themselves and take care of their families and you have to have a welfare state that encourages that behaviour more than anything else.”
And in his twin role as Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary he is at the forefront of parliament efforts to stop Labour repealing measures which granted conditional immunity to both military veterans and paramilitaries if they provided evidence about Troubles-era violence.
If the repeal goes ahead, he fears, ageing veterans will be prosecuted as part of an Irish republican-led effort to rewrite history.
“The people who used to support the IRA very much want to create the entirely incorrect impression that the British Army was wicked and the terrorists were the good guys,” he says. “Those of us who are old enough to remember that time know that is just a barefaced lie. The British Army was there in order to protect the people of Northern Ireland and the IRA were the people who were trying to kill innocent civilians on a very regular basis.”
Alex Burghart wants the Conservatives back in Downing Street (Image: Getty)
His days as an expert in Anglo-Saxon history may seem long ago but he takes inspiration from the nation’s past as he confronts modern challenges.
“One of the most dramatic periods in our whole history is when the Roman Empire in Britain collapses,” he explains. “A civilisation that had been here for about 400 years – within the space of a couple of generations – totally disintegrated… “It’s a huge, cataclysmic change but what emerges out of it is the kingdom of England which is still with us today and has lasted much longer than the Roman Empire. Out of chaos, out of defeat, sometimes emerges something that is stronger and greater, and I think there are lessons for the Conservative party and the country.”
