Reflections

After a slog of a campaign which broke the mould for both the Conservatives and Labour, the election we didn’t need produced the result that the Conservatives didn’t want; it will potentially change the thrust of economic policy and may have far-reaching implications for Brexit negotiations. Without necessarily having any truck for Labour, I must confess to some satisfaction in seeing the Conservatives run aground on the Brexit issue. Almost twelve months after the searing experience on that sunny Friday morning of 24 June 2016, the hard-liners on the right-wing of the Conservative Party who lied their way to victory on Brexit, were chastened by the message handed to them by the electorate, whilst UKIP’s brief spell as a serious political force was effectively terminated.

I have pointed out many times that the efforts by Theresa May and the rest of the Conservative Party to interpret the Brexit vote as a mandate for a hard Brexit were misguided. Their efforts to take ownership of the issue, as if Brexit was a topic only for Conservatives, were way off. The irony is that whilst the election was all about Brexit, it was not even the most important issue of the campaign. Austerity policy was the big story and Conservative efforts to smear Labour’s tax-and-spend policy largely fell on deaf ears.

I have spent the last seven years trying to get people to understand that a fiscal policy based solely on cutting spending is only half a policy. We have witnessed a huge rolling back of the state in recent years, and a withdrawal of the safety net which has genuinely left a lot of people with nowhere to turn. Jeremy Corbyn’s message was that a country which forces its poorest people to get by on charity was failing in its duty to its citizens. You do not have to be a bleeding heart liberal to ask what happens to all the taxes we pay if we have slashed the social welfare safety net so much. People clearly buy into this and I suspect it is the reason why Labour made such gains at the expense of the government.

But before we get too carried away, we should remember that Labour did not win the election. They outperformed expectations, for sure, and in the battle of the leaders came out on top. As in 1974, when Conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath ran on the slogan “who runs Britain,” the electorate has delivered an answer that politicians did not expect. All this raises a question of whether politicians, particularly the government, really are in tune with the public mood. Or are they lost in the bubble of focus groups and Daily Mail headlines which do not paint a sufficiently accurate picture? Past experience suggests that governments which lose touch make mistakes, and they are usually punished at the ballot box.

The Conservatives were punished yesterday but escaped with serious, rather than fatal, injuries – at least for now. They have to learn from those mistakes. I have to confess I did not hear much contrition from Theresa May last night. For an obviously intelligent woman, she needs to get with the programme – for the sake of her career if nothing else. One of the more enlightening interviews I heard overnight was given by former Cabinet Secretary Lord Turnbull on the radio (here 7:48:25 into the recording) who was scathing about the way May has run her government and accused her of running it as a “fiefdom” without the necessary experience to manage the many tasks which modern governments need to take on. In particular he was critical of the lack of economic expertise and directly suggested that she was not up to the job of prime minister.

As a man of great experience at the heart of government, Turnbull’s view should be taken seriously. In his view she is not the right person to lead the country into Brexit negotiations and when asked whether she should stand down, his response was “absolutely” – an extraordinary thing for a man of his stature to say. At the very least, the prime minister will have to compromise on the Brexit strategy. Turnbull pointed out that by entering into a coalition with the DUP, the government should abandon the policy of leaving the EU Customs Union and thereby resolve the Irish border problem, which is high on the list of things the European Commission cares about.

If no such compromises are made, the UK will be driven ever closer to the cliff edge that the prime minister has said she wishes to avoid. And if we are pushed into that position, it will be an act of supreme economic vandalism. I fear that the prime minister will not change course, as she is fearful of the wrath of large swathes of her party if she does. But if she does not, the electorate will also wreak its vengeance. Faced with these twin evils, I would be surprised if the prime minister lasts in office much longer. As the hapless David Moyes found out when he succeeded Alex Ferguson as Manchester United manager, sometimes the better strategy is to avoid taking the top job under the wrong circumstances. Theresa May might have been the least worst candidate for the job as prime minister last summer, but it does not mean she is the best person for the job.