I would not describe what follows as a prediction. Perhaps a guess or a gut feeling. But here goes. The Conservative Party will win the next General Election. Hang on a minute, you ask. How can that be? The hopelessly out of her depth Theresa May ‘leads’ a party riven by division over Europe. Ministers are being sacked on a weekly basis, those who haven’t been sacked say whatever they like with May to weak to sack them. Bestriding the political landscape like a colossus stands Jeremy Corbyn, feted by large crowds of fawning voters. He’s the next prime minister, isn’t he? Think again.
This is the nadir of the Tory Party. Actually, it could be that we are near the nadir of the Tory Party and things may still get worse. No matter. The economy is beginning to stall, public services are in crisis, the care system is close to collapse, living standards are falling and guess what has happened? The Tories are now level with Labour in the opinion polls. Currently, both parties are on 41% with everyone else nowhere. We have returned to two party politics. And at the Tories’ very worst point, Labour is neck and neck with them.
We are either at, or slightly beyond, peak Corbyn. His election defeat this year, somehow presented as a great victory, now leaves him unassailable as Labour leader and PM in waiting, but little has changed. For all his barnstorming speeches, he is still the same man who sat on the backbenches for over 30 years without once holding a ministerial or shadow ministerial post. Granted, he has had good media training, trims his beard now and wears better suits, he is not a serious PM in waiting. And the public knows this. That’s why the wretched May still scores better among the electorate as the best PM. As the EU referendum showed, you can fool some of the people some of the time but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time. The electorate knows, instinctively, that Corbyn is not up to the job.
In any event, Labour knows that the power is behind Corbyn’s throne. The thuggish John McDonnell, Momentum chief and lifelong Bennite John Lansman and the various comrades who have seized the levers of control in Labour. They know, as well as we do, that the likes of Corbyn, Abbott, Thornberry and Burgon are not credible prime ministers and secretaries of state. It’s all about controlling the party for them, to form that huge social movement.
If the Tories stagger on to 2022, and I wouldn’t bet against it, there will be a very different political landscape. The country will be in the midst of post Brexit chaos – as it will be for many, many years to come – and the government, led by someone new and far more competent than May, will blame everyone but themselves for the state of the nation. They followed the “will of the people”, did what they were told. “We told you it would not be plain sailing but let’s make sure all that sacrifice wasn’t in vain. We will take you to the promised land.” I cannot see the Tories ever again running a campaign as bad as May’s and I would imagine the Labour manifesto would be taken to pieces, as it wasn’t at the last election where McDonnell said it had been “fully costed” and the Tories, incredibly, didn’t even suggest it hadn’t been costed (which it hadn’t, other than by McDonnell). As a mainstream left, ex Labour, voter, even I was not convinced by the last Labour manifesto. Then there is Labour’s stance on Europe.
Research indicates that many people voted Labour in a tactical way to prevent May’s hard Brexit. I was lumbered with a hard left Corbynista Labour candidate in Filton and Bradley Stoke but, holding my nose, I put my vote in the Labour box. What a fool I was. For all of his political career, Corbyn has been anti-EU, like his idol Tony Benn. I simply do not believe that he has changed his mind. He believes, like Benn, that Europe is a rich man’s club and that membership would prevent Labour building socialism in one country. You know, like in Venezuela and Cuba. Corbyn’s less than half-hearted support for the EU was brutally exposed by his laissez faire support for remain. Privately, he would have been thrilled by the result. In fact, his true colours emerged when, immediately after the referendum was announced, he called for Article 50 to be triggered straight away. May’s premature activation of the trigger was bad enough. Under Corbyn, we’d be out by June 2018. We wouldn’t be going off a cliff: we’d be going off the highest mountain.
Take out a substantial number of voters who supported Corbyn’s Labour because of the EU and straight away Labour is in trouble. They will be feel rightly let down by Labour and many will not lend Corbyn their vote again. I certainly won’t. And I will not be the only voter who is now politically homeless.
Labour should be miles ahead in the polls and the Tories should be polling in the 20s, not the 40s. But neither is happening. Corbyn’s large cult following can’t see the wood for the trees, his affluent, middle class base is out of touch with the rest of the country and what happens in Islington and Hackney doesn’t necessarily apply in traditional Labour heartlands.
Another guess is that the Tories will go to the country, with a new leader, in 2020 or 2021, depending on the scale of the mess we are in. If Corbyn and the comrades fail to reach out beyond their narrow base and head to the centre left/centre ground, they will not go anywhere as near as they went in 2017. The worst thing is that the affluent chattering middle classes do not need a Labour government, they just fancy one. Working class people need a Labour government. They won’t get one with Corbyn.
