Tory MPs may quit ...but don’t write off the party yet
DILIGENT, capable and loyal, Chloe Smith might not be a dazzling talent but she is exactly the kind of reliable MP that a Parliamentary party needs to have effective governance.
The MP for Norwich North since 2009, she has managed to hold both her marginal seat and a string of ministerial portfolios during a turbulent period at Westminster.
Despite this solid record, this week Smith, who has two children, announced that she is to stand down at the next General Election, due in 2024. “After 15 years of service, it will be the right time to step back, for me and my young family,” she said.
Though that did not amount to much of an explanation, it has been widely assumed that the real reason for her departure is that she thinks she will lose in Norwich North, where her majority over Labour is under 5,000.
Even on a small national swing away from the Tories, she would be highly vulnerable; in 2017, after Theresa May’s disastrous campaign, her majority was just 507.
With the opinion polls grim for the Conservatives and the economy in crisis, Smith’s decision has been seen as the precursor of a wider exodus of MPs who think they are bound to lose at the next election. On Tuesday William Wragg also announced he is to quit as MP for Hazel Grove in Lancashire, with a majority of under 4,500. Indeed reports at Westminster suggest at least 80 Tory MPs are preparing to retire, more than double the total who usually bow out at the end of a Parliament.
In one sense, this apparent stampede for the exit should hardly be a surprise. On their current dismal performance, the Tories are not just facing a landslide defeat in 2024 but also a prolonged spell in the wilderness of Opposition. For months Labour have consistently enjoyed poll leads of over 25 per cent, which would imply a Tory wipeout. In one recent survey, the Conservatives were down to just 14 per cent. Moreover, under Sir Keir Starmer’s shrewd, pragmatic leadership, with the authoritative Rachel Reeves by his side as Shadow Chancellor, Labour looks increasingly credible as an alternative government.
YET it is far too soon to write off the Conservatives. A thumping defeat looks highly probable but it cannot be taken as an inevitability. There are no castiron certainties in democratic politics. After all, under Theresa May, the Tories fell to just nine points in the 2019 European elections, only to win a huge Commons majority a few months later under Boris Johnson at the General Election.
There are all sorts of factors that might suddenly and dramatically work in favour of the Government, such as an escalation in the Ukrainian war or an economic revival, which would make the tough present stance of the Prime Minister and Chancellor look all the braver and wiser. Ministers might belatedly get a grip on immigration or crime. Alternatively, Labour might be hit by a major funding scandal arising from the party’s links with the trade unions, or become embroiled in toxic rows over transgender ideology or identity politics.
The course of political life is never fixed. As Harold Macmillan famously put it, all politicians are at the mercy of “events, dear boy, events”. He took over a party in 1957 that had been torn apart by the Suez crisis, yet he won the General Election two years later with a majority of over 100.
S‘All politicians are at the mercy of events, dear boy, events’
IMILARLY, the political obituaries were being written for Margaret Thatcher in early 1982, so deep was her unpopularity, but then Argentina invaded the Falklands. Her subsequent liberation of the islands transformed her fortunes and helped ensure her massive victory in 1983.
Her successor John Major looked doomed in the 1992 election, after years of internal party conflict and economic turmoil. “Polls point to defeat for the Tories,” declared one Left-wing newspaper.
But Labour, under Neil Kinnock, ran a poor campaign, epitomised by their botched Shadow Budget that threatened to hike taxes, and the complacent triumphalism of the overhyped Sheffield rally.
Major went on to win a surprise victory, backed by a record 14 million voters.
It was the same story in 1970, when the Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson seemed to be cruising to an easy win, buttressed by a lead of 12 per cent in one poll.
But Ted Heath turned out to be the winner, after Labour’s economic record was suddenly undermined by bad balance of payment figures.
The lesson of political history is to expect the unexpected. Chloe Smith may be going, but there remains a sliver of hope for some of her colleagues.