Tories At War is a landmark documentary from Bafta Award winning director Patrick Forbes.
Filmed over the first nine months of 2019, it tells the inside story of the bitter hatreds that mark the Conservative Party’s struggle over the defining issue of the day – Brexit – with extraordinary access to Cabinet ministers, Brexiteers and Remainer rebels. One minister sums up the story of the film, ‘The sadness of this documentary is that you are mapping the day to day slow death of the most successful political party in democratic history – and it’s entirely self-inflicted.’ Or as another put it, ‘It’s a ****storm.’
Its cast includes Leader of the House, and arch Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg, Remain rebels Sir Nicholas Soames and Anna Soubry, bitter critic Foreign Office Minister Sir Alan Duncan, outspoken Brexiteer backbencher Andrew Bridgen, and cabinet minister Nicky Morgan – her loyalties tested by the Prime Minister’s drive toward Brexit: ‘Do or die.’
The documentary starts in January as Prime Minister Theresa May battles to sell her hard withdrawal agreement to an increasingly sceptical House of Commons. It ends as new Prime Minister Boris Johnson faces defeat after defeat in the courts and parliament as he fights to save his vision of Brexit. Last word to Sir Alan Duncan, ‘Boris is the architect of our difficulty. So I’m inclined to say to him. You got us into this mess, mate. Now get us out of it.’