The past 12 months have pushed the Conservative party to breaking point. But while prime ministers, their cabinet colleagues and backroom aides came and went, a group of five MPs known as “the men in grey suits” have been at the centre of each major storm.
Among them is William Wragg, the 35-year-old MP for Hazel Grove, in Greater Manchester, who says his “misspent youth was spent getting into parliament”. Now, he is preparing to leave it.
Despite several offers of promotion, Wragg has remained on the backbenches for seven years, making a name for himself as a torch-bearer for standards while Boris Johnson’s regime was becoming shrouded in sleaze claims.
He called out alleged blackmail by party whips, was one of the first Tories to openly urge Johnson to quit over Partygate, and was a vocal critic of plans to shield Owen Paterson from suspension for breaking lobbying rules.
It was at times lonely and intimidating, Wragg suggests, in his first major interview since announcing he will stand down at the next election. But he says the battle was at least “quite straightforward: it’s really just about good governance, and norms, processes and conventions being followed”.
When Johnson started veering “off-script”, parliament itself became dysfunctional, he says. “People can lose trust, becoming disillusioned and despondent, and question the motives of one another.”
Wragg has been close to much of the action this year, as a vice-chair of the 1922 Committee. Along with the chair, Graham Brady, and the other members – Gary Sambrook, Geoffrey Clifton-Brown and Eddie Hughes – the “men in grey suits” are the voice of the backbenchers within the Conservative party. They hold weekly audiences with cabinet ministers and keep their ear to the ground on issues ranging from policies to proposed constituency boundary changes. At tempestuous times, the committee also controls the rules for confidence votes and Tory leadership contests.
Despite being in control of the levers of power for no-confidence votes, the 1922 Committee has not had to change its rules for three prime ministers – Johnson, Liz Truss and Theresa May to be forced from office. “Political gravity” works, Wragg believes.
“It’s an extraordinary phenomenon to see happen,” he says. “There’s a very fluid sense to it. And it can drip or ebb away, or it can be tidal and dramatic.”
In Johnson’s case, it took seven months. Observing how the pressure had coalesced against him, the outgoing prime minister sighed on the steps of Downing Street: “When the herd moves, it moves.”
But Wragg disagrees. “It’s not herd mentality, I think it’s the opposite really,” he says. “I think it takes time for people, at different rates, to make what is at the end of the day a momentous decision.”
He notes, drily, that were Johnson the beneficiary of such a movement by Tory MPs, it may instead have been described as “a groundswell of support”.
Although Johnson’s most ardent cheerleaders are still hopeful he could make a return, Wragg is unfazed. “I think the public credibility for changing leaders as often as people change their socks would be pretty risible,” he says.
Having served under four Tory leaders, Wragg has proved a thorn in the side for most of them – as an ardent Brexiter during the referendum and subsequent negotiations with the EU, and then a senior member of the lockdown-sceptic Covid Recovery Group during the pandemic.
“I think it’s important that MPs can – not sound off all the time, that does become ridiculous and boring, frankly – but have a certain room for manoeuvre,” he says.
“It’s not simply the opposition who should provide scrutiny to government, it’s also the governing side who should be able to, in a very healthy way, do that. Being a backbencher is an enormously liberated thing to be, if used accordingly. And I do feel for my colleagues who become ministers.”
He has been asked to take on unpaid roles seen as the first step before gaining ministerial status, but declined each time. “You can only be offered on a few occasions to become the bag carrier to some department you’ve never heard of and turn down such nearly overwhelming temptation,” he smiles.
A traditionalist who still sometimes refers to the “Manchester Guardian” by its founding title, Wragg is spoken of by colleagues as a future possible deputy speaker of the Commons and chairs the cross-party public administration and constitutional affairs committee.
He favours MPs making speeches without notes, but admits it took him “four years to have any degree of confidence to speak in the House of Commons in a way that I think that I’m happy with”.
Wragg bemoans politicians who are obsessed with social media – describing them as wannabe “YouTube celebrities” – and gives short shrift to Matt Hancock defending his decision to go on I’m a Celebrity by claiming there are “so few ways in which politicians can show that we are human beings”.
“What a silly thing to say,” snaps Wragg. “It’s just patently untrue. You can show you’re a human being by doing your best in the situation that you find yourself in.
“If basically the only way to interest people in politics is by going into the jungle and eating kangaroos’ extremities or learning how to do the cha-cha-cha then there isn’t much hope for politics.”
Wragg adds: “I’m sick of hearing this rubbish. People respond to politicians generally more favourably, even if they disagree with them, if they see a consistency in what the person says, they understand the motivation of what drives them, all of these things.
“We are here to make the law. And sometimes that can be quite turgid. And, dare I say it, not particularly interesting …
“I mean, perish the thought that there was a chamber that MPs could go to give their opinions on this that and the other. I can’t quite remember what it’s called. I mean, I read somewhere it’s called the House of Commons, not the outback in Australia or under the Blackpool Tower in a ballgown.”
Though Wragg announced at the end of November he would not be standing at the next election, he reveals the thought has been on his mind since May’s disastrous snap election in 2017.
“A number of colleagues – having been here for only a very short amount of time – lost their seats and it made me think this can all be taken away very quickly,” he admits.
He condemns the “arrogant attitude” of anyone standing down purely because they fear losing their seat. “That’s democracy,” says Wragg. “You can’t go into politics and seek elected office if you think that it’s just a dead certainty and you’re going to do this for the rest of your life. It happens, governments come and go, parties suffer up and downs.”
Wragg knows he has up to two years left in office, so while there is a “sense of freedom” that comes with knowing he will not stand again, there is still work to do.
“To achieve everything is a very, very strange objective, because it’s not possible,” he says. He expects to miss the camaraderie and helping constituents, but admits there is “always a risk of being institutionalised”.
“I think I will keep my streak of independent mindedness in the remainder of my time here,” Wragg says. But he winks: “I have to leave them wanting more.”
