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Theresa May Remains Prime Minister
Theresa May has been to Buckingham Palace and will continue as Her Majesty’s Prime Minister. One seat is yet to declare the result of yesterday’s general election. That it is Kensington, one of the safest of Tory strongholds, and that it is in doubt is the election in a nutshell; Mrs May gambled on gaining and lost her base. From working majority to minority government in six weeks and blowing the largest slice of goodwill the Conservative party has enjoyed in a generation.
Already we have calls that the Conservatives were not left wing enough, that Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour with its hard socialist message shows the electorate has moved left. Utter rubbish. The Tories got their largest vote share in decades despite their ruinous manifesto. What we have just had is a re-run of the referendum from last year with no one really mentioning it. Mrs May was right to believe that UKIP’s vote would collapse and totally wrong on how to woo them. Mr Corbyn’s vague promises on Brexit going ahead was enough to tempt former Labour ‘kippers back into the fold once Mrs May failed to follow up her Brexit rhetoric with any conviction. Worse still her policy proscriptions showed a complete failure to diagnose the Brexit coalition, to treat it as a malady rather than a rejection of the governing consensus. Endless time has been spent trying to determine the reasons for Brexit, with no concrete answer because there is not one. Rather there were a whole host of reasons, the one unifying theme was that the liberal elite were taking the country down the wrong path, whether that was immigration policy or sovereignty issues or any of the other reasons people voted to leave the EU. If the vote last year was a rejection of Third Way centrist Blairism, offering a Blairite manifesto was the height of idiocy. Failure to galvanise this base with a positive vision of the future – as the Leave campaign did last year – while the remnants of the Remain campaign quietly and carefully coordinated their side with a simple stop ‘Hard Brexit’ message, was the real reason for this complete cock-up.
Mrs May had a twenty point lead in the polls despite being the least media friendly Prime Minister in recent memory. She was Judi Dench’s M from the recent James Bond films, competently in the background organising her more flamboyant operatives while simultaneously showing she had bigger balls than any of them; Margaret Thatcher without actually having to be Maggie. Calling an election and putting herself front and centre like a presidential candidate destroyed that image and thrust her own brand of ‘Red Toryism’ into the limelight. It had gone down like a cup of sick with the Tory faithful, who were willing to see it as an olive branch to the media crowd but not campaign on it. Insulting the libertarian wing of the party (well over a third of the activists and certainly the more Brexiteer members) in a speech is one thing, equating them with socialists twice in the manifesto was another. The most common phrase of conservatives was “if it wasn’t for Brexit…” before disavowing the very Milibandesque manifesto they were supposed to sell. Consequently the public were hardly enthused, indeed the MP responsible for it lost his seat.
The silver linings from this disaster are there for those willing to read the runes. The most obvious is the fall in support for the Scottish Nationalists, kicking a second independence referendum into the long grass. While acknowledging I scoffed at the idea of a dozen Tory seats north of the border, I would have to counter that it cost a majority south of it. Whether that will be worth the instability now on offer only time will tell. Secondly, the Remain elements of the party are now weakened while the Leavers are enhanced. While this may look paradoxical the morning after the night before, if ‘Theresa’s Team’ had won a majority approaching the three figure mark the Thatcherite free market wing of the party would have been sidelined. As they have actually been the most loyal of all Mrs May parliamentary troops, we now have the chance to see them promoted. The fate of the Boris-bashing Amber Rudd, whose five thousand majority shrunk to less than four hundred in Brexit-voting Hastings, shows how the referendum last year has changed the game. The fact that Mrs May elevated this woman to succeed her as Home Secretary, and then sent her out to bat as her surrogate in the TV debate, illustrates how out of touch Tory high command are; Mrs Rudd goes down well with the media class but not the base. Again this is a lesson for the Conservative party, no matter how they pander to the political correct crowd it will never be enough to induce them to vote Tory and only alienates supporters. After the BBC quite shamelessly put its thumb on the scales in this election (and they are hardly hiding their glee this morning either), the Tories would be well advised to start taking a leaf out of President Trump’s playbook and fight back. They could follow his lead on terrorism and climate change too….
Mrs May will probably continue as a caretaker PM – the Brexit negotiations are due to start in ten days time – but she is weakened, perhaps fatally. On the other hand governing as Chairman rather than the Cabinet CEO offers her the best path to redemption. She wished to craft her own agenda to leave as a legacy instead of grasping that a successful Brexit would be her best chance at history. In the long run this election might just be better for the country, though you could put a safe bet on the Tories tacking further left in reaction to this debacle.
Published in General
What an epic fail on her part.
And people wonder why voters are rejecting
You would think, but if you look at this thread not so much.
I can second that, from what I heard on the doorstep and by the large numbers of young Labour activists prowling the streets. I’m not on Facebook, but I’ve been told that it was awash with Labour propaganda which supposedly helped bring out the youth vote.
On the whole, and for many of the reasons you’ve stated in the OP, this could end up being good for Brexit. And the DUP are “proper” conservatives, so a confidence-and-supply agreement with them might be very positive and help the Thatcherite/libertarian wing of the party. By counting the DUP and assuming Kensington stays blue then we get to 329 seats, one short of where we were. So it’s actually not that bad.
If you look at the vote totals the story is the complete collapse of UKIP. Yes there were almost 2 million more votes than in 2015. But based on polling from prior years UKIP base was between a third and 40% Labour mostly old Labour. The greens lost over half their voters and SNP over third. They would of all gone Labour we can assume. So even if the 2 mil extra votes broke hard for Labour say 2/3rd it still means that old Labour pretty much whole sale left UKIP for Labour. Also lib actually lost vote share but gained seats. So its more of a story of the two major parties picking up third party votes of which labour did a lot better than the youth vote. So it would appear that the labor leavers believe Corbyn’s few year change to remainer was not sincere.
For those interested the DUP manifesto is certainly more attractive than the Conservative one. Do you reckon they’ll demand an end to the license fee as a the price for their votes? Hopefully means we’ll see more of Laura Perrins too.
The hyperbole about the extent of May’s defeat — not so much here, as at other sites — is a bit much for me.
It is clearly a setback for the Conservatives, and a poor judgment by May to set an early election, at least in hindsight. But this is not like the Nazi disaster at Stalingrad. More like the Allied overreach at Arnhem.
Even Arnhem is overstating the point, because we know that the Allies pressed on to total victory thereafter. Maybe this one is more like the Battle of New Orleans — where we stopped British overreach, but the end result was preservation of the status quo.
Or did many UKIP voters stay home not wanting to give May a blank cheque? All those predictions of a large majority… A large part of UKIP is classically liberal after all….
So the way I see it, the decision to hold elections was smart. Afterwards, things were done badly.
But this really is bad & it’s not clear PM May will even survive this election. Now she’s quickly got herself a new government. We’ll see whether it holds. Whether it’s at all good for the Brexit negotations.
Then, too, this woman has just ruined her reputation. What now?
Scrapping the licence fee and reforming the BBC… I sincerely hope they make that a deal-breaker in negotiations! The BBC presenters this morning grinning with delight as the news came in was sickening to behold, and with the ludicrously biased audiences for the debates, I think it’s becoming increasingly obvious to many people just how screwed up the corporation is. But as I’m sure you’d agree, the chances of anything changing are next to nil.
I loved the Laura Perrins video:
“Get off your high horse!”
“No no no, the horse is important because usually you’re on the horse, Zoe. So I’m now on the horse.”
Now we flail around trying to get rid of her somehow. It can happen either by her resigning, or if 48 Conservative MPs express their lack of confidence to the Chairman of the 1922 Committee. But it’s too early to tell whether there is any real appetite in the parliamentary party for that. I have a horrible feeling she might stay, and lose the next election.
Well, she’ll stay for now. The previous leadership battle showed what the party has to offer by way of ambition. Outside of the angel of the Tories, Boris Johnson, who has anything to offer by way of a challenge, a vision, & the promise of a way forward?
Ha they said that about Hillary.
You brought Tory Rory into the discussion? Well, @mrnick, what say you? He’s an impressive guy, but I’ve little idea whether he knows anything about politics!
As for Mr. Gove, I suspect he is dead politically.
There is absolutely no way of any meaningful reform with the BBC dominating the media landscape. Back in the spring they informed that as a free trade loving conservative, I should look to Xi Jingping of Communist China as the global leader of free trade and supposedly ex-communist Vladimir Putin as the leading conservative, Ministry of Truth indeed. And don’t get me started on how many small businesses have lost the chance to advertise while the BBC shamelessly promotes itself…
Laura Perrins has a knack of sending the left into apoplexy (yes I know Maria Miller is supposedly one of ours).
Sorry old bean but I must have missed something? Gove was being touted for a comeback just today.
Do tell! What’s his relation to Boris these days?
@mrnick, I’d be interested to hear your views on Rory Stewart as a potential leader. I know he was pro-Remain, and that it’s unclear what his principles really are, but in every other respect (!) I think he could be a very effective leader.
Perhaps UKIP took a beating because, like Republicans, they failed to accomplish what they were elected to do. If the vote for Brexit never had any teeth, what was the point? Maybe voters are returning to the parties perceived to have real power.
No. They were wiped out because people took Brexit for a done deal, at least once Labour also signed up for it, which they have during the campaign.
Oh it was just a report that he and Ian Duncan Smith were lined up to come back into the Cabinet. Gove has been serving his penance on the backbenches and doing loyal media appearances when no government minister would. I read that he and Boris had made up but I doubt they are close.
You could be right but I don’t think the number is that large. It will be interesting when data is analyzed to get the exact number of who did not vote in 2015 that voted in 2017. Again the story is third parties lost 4.4 million votes and if you take vote share from the 2015 it comes out just under 5 million, UKIP’s losses are almost 75% of that. Heck even Lib Dems lost votes and picked up seats, they just had small losses compared to the other three big third parties. So for narrative that a large amount of 2015 UKIP voters stayed at home you would have to have close to 4 million voters who voted in 2017 but not 2015.
I thought that was who you meant. He has been underused for sure, he was an administrator out in Iraq and has quite a lot of foreign policy expertise. Leadership? You’d think they would want someone of Cabinet rank no? I guess he would be an excellent leader of the opposition with a few years to grow into it but in at the deep end? Now? He is pretty sound but perhaps slightly wet? I seem to recall reading that he was in line for a ministerial post in the reshuffle that is now hastily being torn up after the loss of those ministers. Always liked him though as he’s into his history .
I agree it was a mistake but they are better off than in 2010, especially since this time they won’t have Lib Dems in major cabinet positions. I really hope DUP holds out for the home secretary cabinet position. Although I don’t know there parliament members. So I don’t know if they have someone who could run that well. From a manifesto standpoint are they great on security. That is one area were DUP can be trusted a lot more than the Conservatives. If they insisted that Tony Robinson (former leader of DUP who has been harassed and abused a lot by the police) be the Home Secretary, I think the media would be claiming the end times are here.
Seriously next to BREXIT security is what Britoners care about the most. Having someone strong on that front, which May never was, would be the best thing the Conservatives could due for themselves when it comes to cabinet pick.
Although I considered myself fairly well-informed about UK politics (for an American), this is the first I’ve ever heard of the DUP, and now they seem poised to play kingmaker. Learn something new every day…
I initially felt the same, particularly after the last two useless Home Secretaries of the Conservatives, including one who giddily doubled down on Labour’s infamous banning of Michael Savage, by banning Robert Spencer and Pam Geller.
That would really freak out Sinn Fein. But the thing is that getting a cabinet position for a small regional party would be of little benefit relative to alternative enticements.
A real or imagined national party can aspire to big things. Having one of their people in a visible cabinet position is preparation for ultimately being the PM.
DUP’s only real ambition is to strengthen its position in Ulster. It might be able to do that better by extracting spending, etc. from a purely Conservative government rather than by direct exercise of the power of a cabinet post.
They seem a bit mad on social issues, so not libertarian at all.
As for Kensington…..it feels like waking up in a Torchwood episode, doesn’t it?
Rory Stewart is slightly wet — somewhat oddly, considering his life — and he’s also not of Cabinet rank, that’s true. But given Corbyn and Trump, how much of an impediment is a lack of experience in high office, these days? Anyway, it was just a thought.
As for the cabinet reshuffle, it’s not at all clear that Theresa May will survive long enough to appoint a full cabinet. “If it were done […] then ’twere well it were done quickly.”
Actually as a “Chairman of the Cabinet” he would probably be an excellent unity candidate. With that in mind, other backbench MPs worth a thought include Steve Baker, James Cleverly and, for the Conservative’s Conservative, Jacob Rees-Mogg…
The last may seem crazy but Boris has prepared the ground, and even Labour voters respect his authenticity. It would also be incredibly enjoyable.