Allister Heath:

The special circumstances of Brexit and Corbyn won’t last – so she must reduce dependence on the state

If this were any other time, and if it had a proper leader, Labour would actually be in with a chance: many of the pocket-book issues that usually help determine elections have turned against the Tories. Real wages have ground to a halt, thanks to higher inflation; retail sales have dropped; and the home ownership rate continues to slide.

Even more depressingly, more than half of British households now take out more from the state than they pay in tax, official figures revealed this week. George Osborne, for all of his supposed “austerity”, failed to make more than a dent in the gigantic increase in state dependency engineered by Gordon Brown. Mitt Romney, the Republican candidate, had a point when he argued that only net tax contributors tend to vote centre-Right: voters that are hooked to government expenditure are more likely to back the Left-wing party that promises to spend the most.

With 50.5 per cent of UK households receiving more from the state (including cash benefits and in-kind services) than they pay in taxes (direct and indirect), down only slightly from a peak of 53.2 per cent in 2009-10, the Tories thus face a massive in-built electoral disadvantage. Just 43.8 per cent of households were net dependents in 2000: Labour’s plan to shift the economic self-interest of millions of voters to create a permanent Left-wing majority remains largely intact. The increase in the dependency rate for households of working age is even worse. It’s up from 29 per cent in 2000-01 to 37.2 per cent today, thanks to in-work tax credits and higher public spending. The Labour legacy lives on, despite everything.

It is in this context that the Tories’ extraordinary surge in the polls, and the Prime Minister’s rocketing popularity, deserve to be seen. It is a monumental achievement, one that confirms that the traditional rules have indeed been suspended. Thanks to a combination of Brexit and Jeremy Corbyn, the politics of culture, identity and values have neutralised or even reversed conventional economic drivers of voting behaviour. In some cases, bad economic news is even helping the Government, thanks to Theresa May’s ability to take on the mantle of an insurgent.

To millions who have never voted Tory before, Mrs May is the right woman at the right time, the outsiders’ insider, the perfect leader to take the country through the next few critical years. Her attributes wouldn’t have cut much ice in the 1990s, when we wanted politicians to be cool and to emote endlessly; but they chime with today’s public mood. Mrs May’s moral seriousness, her detachment, her probity, the fact that she doesn’t appear interested in money, her grammarschool upbringing as a vicar’s daughter, her lower middle class, provincial hard-working Tory values: all of these factors have coalesced into an electorally explosive offering, especially when set against Jeremy Corbyn’s preposterousness.

The public also likes the fact that Mrs May is a Remainer who has genuinely changed her mind: for once, a politician who has listened. They believe that she is patriotic and that she cares about their issues, including immigration. Crucially, her values are also contemporary. She backs all of the social reforms of the past 20 years; as a result, for the first time since the 1970s and 1980s, the Tories are on the right side of the culture wars and are aligned with the views of a resurgent Middle England (and Wales, and dare I say it, Scotland even).

Thanks in part to Labour’s toxic economic and security policies, the Tories have retained almost all of their Remain-voting supporters while proving extraordinarily attractive to Leavers. Voting Ukip or Brexit has served as a gateway drug for ex-Labour voters: now that they broken the habit of a lifetime by backing a different party or endorsing a cross-party yet Tory-dominated cause, they are prepared to give others the chance. The erstwhile strength of Labour’s brand, the fact that so many voters would never have dreamt of voting for anybody else, the old “Tory scum” nonsense – it’s all gone, thanks to the combined forces of Brexit, Corbynism and the fact that our dominant consumerist culture continues to erode class-based voting. Cameron and Osborne did some good for the Tories, but their personal characteristics meant that Tory support was capped far lower than it should have been.

Mrs May is thus set to pull off an electoral hat-trick that none of us ever thought even remotely possible. She could be on the verge of simultaneously reuniting the Right – at Ukip’s expense – regaining the aspirational, patriotic blue-collar workers that deserted the party in 1997 – destroying Labour in the North – and attracting the unionist vote in Scotland, killing the SNP’s fantasy of an independent socialist state. Populism will have been absorbed (in the case of England and Wales) or vanquished (in Scotland’s). At the same time, she will hold on to almost all of the Cameron demographic gains, including the more successful immigrant groups and other minorities that were brought on side with the modernisation agenda.

The problem for the Tories is that not all of these gains will be sustainable: they can’t remain a 1950s-style national party forever. There will only ever be one Brexit election. Once we’ve left the EU, and Britain begins to settle into its new identity as an independent nation, the old cleavages will reappear. A new centre-Left party will emerge and disagreements over tax and spend will take centre-stage once more. Those who depend on the state will vote for higher taxes and more spending. It will become apparent that the forces of political gravity had only been temporarily suspended.

It is therefore vital that the Tories not get carried away by their likely triumph, and start planning for the future when they remain at the height of their powers. They must spend the next few years building a sustainable pro-conservative coalition in the country, and that means making sure that the manifesto remains committed to reducing the size of the state, lowering taxes (at least over time) and encouraging an ownership society by increasing house-building.

No country can thrive if the majority of its population is permanently living off a minority: more people must be given the tools to stand on their own two feet. If the Tories really want to change Britain, and to make the most of this country’s dramatic political realignment, they cannot afford to jettison their smaller-state philosophy.