Kompromat

by Stanley Johnson

‘And what’s the answer to that question? Remind me,’ Mabel Killick asked. ‘I read Sir Oliver Holmes’ report. Very diplomatically phrased. Couldn’t make head or tail of it.’

  ‘I agree it’s complicated. Sir Oliver’s people are convinced the documents are genuine in the sense that that they were genuinely sent to or from the prime minister’s office. On the other hand, there is no evidence that money ever changed hands.’

  ‘No evidence of “cash for Brexit” transactions?’

  ‘None that they can find. But that’s not conclusive of course. These City folk are quite adept at covering their tracks.’

  Mabel Killick obviously didn’t want to go further down that route. ‘Let’s leave that one for the moment. We’ll have to revert at some later date, I’m sure. What else do we have?’

  ‘The Russians have helped Leave nobble large chunks of the press and media to ensure that the Leave message gets maximum attention’.

  ‘And the third point?’

  ‘We think the Russians influenced Helga Brun, at a crucial moment on the immigration issue. There’s some suggestion of a long-standing link between the chancellor and Russian Intelligence.’

  Mabel Killick groaned. ‘I can’t believe this. Don’t tell me there’s more.’

  ‘I’m afraid there is. Though we haven’t yet found the man who fired the shot, we suspect there may be some active Russian involvement here too. Harriet Marshall had a long meeting with a man we assume is her Russian handler on Hampstead Heath the day of the Oxford Union debate. We think they planned the assassination attempt there.’

  Mabel Killick looked shocked. ‘Are you telling me that Harriet Marshall was ready to have her own leader, Edward Barnard, assassinated if that helped the Leave campaign gain another point or two in the polls?’

  ‘That is precisely what I suspect. And I’m suggesting that the key player throughout, on the Leave side at least, has indeed been Harriet Marshall. Our feeling is that’s she’s been a Russian sleeper ever since she left Oxford. As a matter of fact, we believe she may have actually been recruited while she was an undergraduate there, known as Howard Marshall. She was to be properly trained later – following a sex-change operation – when she worked in Moscow after leaving university. We always focus on Cambridge as a hotbed for Russian spies and seem to forget about Oxford.’

  The home secretary, who had been at Oxford herself, commented acidly, ‘It’s hardly a badge of honour to be recruited by the KGB or FSB.’

  She rose and paced the room in her smart leopard-skin shoes. ‘It’s too late to cancel the Referendum,’ she said. ‘The damage is done. If we go public with what we know, or suspect, the Leave campaign will laugh us out of court. They’ll say we’ve cooked the whole thing up in a last desperate move to discredit them before the vote. They’ll throw the book at us. How many authorizations do you have, Jane, for all those wire taps and surveillance operations? Are you sure your hands are clean? And, from what you’ve told me, I’m not sure your interrogator was playing strictly by the rules.’

  Mabel Killick made up her mind. And once she had made up her mind, she was hard to sway.

  ‘We may not like it,’ she said. ‘But we are where we are.’

  ‘What do we do about Harriet?’ Jane Porter asked.

  ‘Put her on a plane to Moscow,’ the home secretary said. ‘And tell her not to come back. Not ever.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  At 6:00a.m. exactly on Friday June 24th, 2016, Noel Garnett, the BBC’s veteran reporter and commentator, announced that Vote Leave had secured more than half the votes cast. Britain had voted for Brexit.

  At 8:15a.m. on that day, the United Kingdom’s prime minister, Jeremy Hartley, with his wife Miranda at his side, emerged from the famous black door at Number 10 Downing Street to concede defeat.

  He gave a moving and statesman-like address.

  ‘Good morning, everyone.’ Hartley began. ‘The country has just taken part in a giant democratic exercise, perhaps the biggest in our history.

  ‘Over thirty-three million people from England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and Gibraltar have all had their say.

  ‘There can be no doubt about the result.

  ‘I was absolutely clear about my belief that Britain is stronger, safer and better off inside the European Union, and I made clear the Referendum was about this and this alone—not the future of any single politician, including myself.

  ‘But the British people have made a very clear decision to take a different path, and I think the country requires fresh leadership to take it in this direction.’

  Many people in Britain, and indeed around the world, had stayed up all night. Others had just switched on their television sets or radios. Few doubted the sincerity of the prime minister’s feelings. Mabel Killick was one of them.

  Later that morning, Jeremy Hartley received an urgent message from the home secretary, a message he could not ignore.

  Soon after 1:00p.m., she entered Downing Street by the back door and was shown to the prime minister’s study with no officials present.

  ‘I’ve sat on it as long as I could, Prime Minister?’ Mrs Killick continued. ‘I wanted to be sure I had all the facts. But now I do have the facts, I don’t think I can keep quiet any longer.’

  ‘Keep quiet about what?’

  ‘The Referendum dossier, of course,’ the home secretary replied.

  She took him through the evidence step by step.

  ‘Our experts have subjected the dossier to the most rigorous examination. We are convinced that every single document is genuine, and that includes the additions in your own handwriting to the draft of your Bloomberg speech, back in January 2013, when you wrote: “that is why I am in favour of a Referendum”. I admit we have not been able to trace the £10 million or £12 million paid by persons unknown in exchange for this commitment. But that doesn’t mean the transaction never occurred. Wouldn’t you agree? The expression “Laundromat” has a whole new meaning nowadays.

  ‘Forget about brown envelopes full of fivers in exchange for a putting down a few Parliamentary Questions,’ Mabel Killick continued. ‘Some would say that the whole future of our country seems to have been up for sale. As home secretary I am in charge of the police and law enforcement, and I am interested therefore in what precisely went on. Without prejudice, of course.’

  The prime minister sighed. ‘I give you my word that I never asked anyone for money and I state categorically that no money was ever paid. That was just part of the Brexit dossier. I wanted to make it as convincing as possible and the financial aspect was crucial. People are always happy to believe the worst where money is involved.’

  ‘Why did you need a dossier at all?’ the home secretary asked. ‘Please help me out here.’

  So Jeremy Hartley, patiently and without guile, explained the whole scheme.

  ‘Having the commitment in the manifesto to hold a Referendum was the first crucial step. But that Referendum had to be won, and won convincingly, by Leave. Frankly, at the beginning of this year that simply didn’t look likely. Even the pro-Leave members of the Cabinet, like David Cole, were clinging on to their portfolios and the perks of office, instead of getting out on the road and campaigning for Brexit. I thought, “Good grief, we can’t just let UKIP run this one”. Simon Henley may be a good man to have a drink with. Not bad on telly, I suppose. But UKIP was really a one-man band. I had this feeling of total panic. Here we were with this tremendous opportunity and we were in danger of letting that opportunity slip through our fingers. The Leave campaign needed a leader, and they needed one fast.’

  ‘So you picked on Edward Barnard?’ Mabel Killick was beginning to understand what Hartley was driving at.

  ‘Precisely,’ Hartley replied. ‘Barnard may not be the sharpest pencil in the box but he has real leadership qualities. I thought, if Barnard takes up the challenge of leading Leave, things will begin to move in the right direction. So I worked up the Referendum dossier, as you call it, a
nd made sure Barnard got to see it. I was absolutely convinced that, once he did, Barnard would resign on the spot from the government. But he would be driven by a sense of honour and duty not to stand on the sidelines. He would say to himself, “I can’t let the Referendum be won by trickery and subterfuge by that devious bastard, Jeremy Hartley. If it’s going to be won at all, it has to be won fair and square”.’

  ‘My God!’ the home secretary exclaimed. ‘How devious can you get? You made sure the Russians had the dossier and that they in turn gave it to Barnard. Wasn’t that collusion?’

  ‘Oh, come on, Mabel. The Russians aren’t bogeymen. We shared the same objective: getting the UK out of the EU. And if the EU, post-Brexit, itself disintegrates, is that such a bad thing? For hundreds of years, British foreign policy has aimed at stopping the creation of a single hegemonistic power on the continent of Europe. We fought Spain, we fought France, we fought the Prussians, and we fought Hitler. Even today, over there in Brussels, they’re talking about a common European defence force to supplement the disastrous Eurozone. Those guns might one day point at us. Can we really let that happen? The sooner the whole thing’s dismantled, the better for everyone.’

  ‘What you’re basically saying, Prime Minister,’ Mrs Killick tried to sum up, ‘is deep down, you were always a Leaver, not a Remainer even though you stood as a Remainer as far as the electorate is concerned. Your priority, in the so-called renegotiation, was to make sure that you failed, rather than succeeded. “Pretty thin gruel” was precisely what you were hoping for and that was what you got. Of course your brilliant scheme, your wizard wheeze, was almost frustrated when the EU looked as though they had a real plan to deal with migration. Fortunately Helga Brun scuppered that one at the last moment!

  ‘But to make your plan work, you had to stay undercover. If you had actively campaigned for Leave, you would have split the Conservative Party from head to toe. Tom Milbourne, for example, would have challenged you for the leadership on the spot. So now that you’ve announced your resignation, you’re going down with a smile on your face. Mission accomplished!’’

  ‘Got it in one,’ Hartley said. ‘Didn’t you hear me humming that little tune, when I walked back into Number 10, after my speech this morning? People tell me the mic picked it up.’

  The home secretary was curious. ‘What was that tune? I thought I recognized it.’

  ‘ “The Eton Boating Song”,’ Hartley replied. ‘ “Swing, swing together. Tum-ti-ti, tum-titi-tum!” ’

  Moments later, the home secretary left Downing Street by the front door. The cameras flashed.

  ‘Are you going to throw your hat in the ring, Home Secretary?’ Nancy Ginsberg, the BBC’s chief political reporter, called out.

  Mabel Killick smiled enigmatically and strode on.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Melissa Barnard let the phone ring for a while. She was listening to the Archers. She wanted to hear what had happened to Helen in her domestic abuse storyline. The phone wouldn’t be for her anyway. Not at 7:00p.m. All her friends knew she would be listening to the radio at that time. And Edward was out for a ride. As a matter of fact, it was the first time Edward had ridden Jemima since that evening at the Oxford Union when Jerry, the security man, had rugger-tackled him. Almost broke Barnard’s leg. He had a socking, great bruise on his thigh.

  The phone went on ringing. In the end she picked it up. It was the Downing Street switchboard. ‘The prime minister’s trying to get in touch with Mr Barnard.’

  ‘Well, I’m afraid my husband’s out with Jemima. He doesn’t have his phone with him.’

  ‘Does Jemima have a phone? We could maybe get a message to him that way.’

  ‘Jemima’s his horse.’

  Melissa didn’t add that sometimes she felt her husband preferred his lovely bay mare, 16.2 hands, to his own dearly beloved wife. She watched him sometimes, sneaking an apple from the basket, when he headed out to the stable. And he talked to Jemima in a low, crooning way. He never talked like that to her.

  ‘Could you possibly tell Mr Barnard that the prime minister would very much like to see him at 3:00p.m. tomorrow? We’ll leave his name at the gate, of course.’

  ‘Of course.’ What on earth was that about, Melissa thought?

  Edward Barnard hadn’t the foggiest either. ‘Beats me,’ he said, when Melissa gave him the message. As far as he was concerned, now that the Referendum was over, he was out to grass.

  Still, they watched the news on the BBC later that evening. A removal van was parked at the back entrance to Downing Street; men burdened with packing cases streamed out of the house like warrior ants.

  ‘Tomorrow, Mrs Mabel Killick, Britain’s new prime minister, will kiss hands with Her Majesty the Queen and take the oath of office. This is likely to happen around nine in the morning. She will then proceed to Number 10, Downing Street. She will spend her first day constructing her new Cabinet. There will be good news for some; bad news for others. One thing is sure: Mabel Killick will make up her mind what she wants and then she will stick to her decision.’

  Barnard arrived at the Downing Street gate in plenty of time for his 3p.m. appointment with the prime minister. The press and TV were out in force, lined up with cameras pointing at the famous door. Who’s in? Who’s out? That was the story of the hour.

  ‘We don’t need to see your passport, Mr Barnard,’ the duty-guard said. ‘We know you very well. Good luck.’

  A line from Coleridge’s ‘Ancient Mariner’ came to him, as he emptied his pockets at security.

  ‘We were the first /that ever burst/ into that silent sea.’

  The door opened as Edward Barnard approached. He had been to Number 10 Downing Street often enough in the past but he always wondered just how they managed to open the door at precisely the moment you got there. Some secret sensor, perhaps. Or PC Plod looking through a spyhole. He’d find out one day, no doubt.

  Giles Mortimer met him inside. ‘Very good of you to come in, Mr Barnard. I hope your leg is better. Let’s go straight on up.’

  Mortimer had, like his colleague Holly Percy, moved with the new prime minister from the Home Office to Number 10. Barnard followed him upstairs, looking at the photos of former prime ministers on the wall. Mrs Thatcher had already waited more than a quarter of a century for some female company, so a few more days wouldn’t matter.

  The prime minister was in the Cabinet Room. They shook hands. She motioned to him to take a seat. Barnard noted that her two aides, Giles Mortimer and Holly Percy, were in close attendance.

  They spent a couple of moments in polite chit-chat. Then Mrs Killick said, ‘I suppose you’re wondering why you’re here? It’s quite simple really. You were the chairman of the Leave campaign. You were and are a national figure. I was tremendously struck by the shock and concern that people on all sides showed last month when an attempt was made on your life. People trust you.’ She paused and looked straight at him. ‘I want you to be chancellor of the exchequer. I’m sure you’ll be a great success.’

  The news struck him like a thunderbolt. Chancellor of the exchequer! One of the great Offices of state!

  ‘But what about Tom?’ he blurted. ‘Tom Milbourne?’

  ‘I’ve just sacked him. He came and left by the back door ten minutes before you got here.’ She looked at her aides. ‘Short and sweet. Wouldn’t you say, Giles?’

  ‘Short, but not exactly sweet, Prime Minister,’ Giles Mortimer replied.

  Later that evening media news bulletins carried the full list of major appointments, decisions on some minor posts being carried over to the next day.

  The most dramatic news was that the new prime minister had dismissed Tom Milbourne, the chancellor of the exchequer and leading Remainer, in what had apparently been a brief and ill-tempered exchange. Almost equally dramatic was the news that Milbourne’s successor was to be Edward Barnard, MP, former chairman of Leave.

  The BBC’s Nancy Ginsberg commented, ‘The days have passed when ch
ancellors were happy to use matchsticks and not much else to help them with their budgetary calculations. Given the turmoil that the Brexit vote has already brought about in terms of the drastic decline in the value of sterling, not to speak of all the other complications for the economy which may arise, the new chancellor will certainly need to have his wits about him. That said, there is no doubt about Edward Barnard’s enormous popular appeal, not merely as a leading Brexiteer, but also as a man who only last month survived a cowardly assassination attempt. Barnard is that unusual character. A man whom people, all kinds of people, seem to trust. Perhaps that is the real reason Mrs Killick has chosen him.’

  Apart from Barnard’s appointment to the Treasury, the new prime minister had produced another stroke of genius. Harry Stokes, the ebullient and charismatic former Mayor of London, had been offered – and had accepted – the post of foreign secretary.

  The news bulletins showed the new foreign secretary leaving Downing Street with a cheerful look as though this was the way he had planned it all along.

  ‘Tremendous opportunity!’ he shouted to the waiting crowd. ‘Broad sunlit uplands! Best of all possible worlds! Incredible honour!’

  Nancy Ginsberg was back on air. ‘Fenella Gibson has succeeded David Coles at the Ministry of Justice,’ she explained. ‘And a Department for Exiting the European Union has been created, headed by that pugnacious street-fighter, Sam Berryman, as well as another department, designed to build new trading links with the brave new world out there beyond the EU. That is to be headed by Monica Fall, MP for Blyth.’

  Later that day, Edward Barnard moved into his office in the Treasury. He found a note from the former chancellor on the chancellor’s desk.

  ‘Good luck, Ed, in your new job,’ he read. ‘Hope you enjoy sitting at this desk. Should give you a chance to help clear up the mess you have created! Yours ever, Tom’.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR