Revived Tory party can cast Labour out
CRUSHED by internal divisions, policy failures and deepening unpopularity, the Conservative Government recently has come to resemble a corpse that is ready for the mortuary. But suddenly there are signs of life in the cadaver. As the body twitches, a croak of defiance can be heard from the mouth and a glint of resolve lights up the eyes.
In the last few days, the Tories have displayed the kind of fighting spirit that has long been absent from the party. The tone of determination has been set by Rishi Sunak, who seems invigorated rather than daunted by fresh challenges. In a very personal triumph, he pushed his Rwanda legislation through Parliament this week, providing the first practical measure that might deter illegal migration across the Channel. He announced the biggest rise in defence spending in a generation too, as well as a crackdown on the culture of welfare dependency and a massive reduction in the White hall payroll.
This renewed sense of purpose is bad news for Labour, whose commanding polls lead is built on public disillusion with the Government rather than any real enthusiasm for the Left-wing alternative. Never in political history has an imminent landslide been viewed with such indifference by the electorate. In truth, Labour’s vote is soft and may easily collapse under pressure.
Today, there is nothing like the atmosphere of the 1945, 1964 or 1997 elections when in each case Labour enjoyed huge public appeal as the agent of national revival. On the contrary, Labour looks defensive, bereft of ideas beyond the dreary expansion of officialdom, the further implementation of the woke agenda and the reward of favoured special interests, such as the public sector unions.
Analysis of opinion polls shows the real weakness of Keir Starmer’s movement – for, despite their current superficial ascendancy, satisfaction with Labour is now lower than it was in 2014, on the eve of Ed Miliband’s humiliating defeat by David Cameron. Just 31 per cent of respondents in an Ipsos survey this month said Labour is fit to govern, down from 41 per cent in 2014. Similarly, Starmer’s approval ratings are far behind Cameron’s when he was opposition leader.
Labour’s vulnerability is concealed by voters’ hostility towards the Tories, but that could change, according to Gideon Skinner, head of research at Ipsos: “If the Conservatives can rebuild their reputation, especially on competence, Labour could find their position is not as strong as it looks.”
Far from growing, Labour’s membership has actually fallen by 23,000 since January. Discontent is increasing on the Left, reflected in the recent loss of the Rochdale byelection and the erosion of Muslim support over the conflict in Gaza.
On a deeper level, Labour’s inability to win over the public stems from their lack of a convincing programme for governance. They wail about underfunding yet fail to say what taxes they would use to fund spending. They trumpet their patriotism yet are craven in their submission to all that is woke. They screech about equality but struggle to define what a woman is. They give lip service to dynamic enterprise yet want to enmesh commerce in red tape and bolster the strike-happy unions. They talk about radical reform yet all they offer is a deluge of bureaucracy. Typically, their only answer to illegal immigration is the creation of two new border units, just as their solution to economic stagnation is to establish an Industrial Strategy Council, a Skills England quango, a British Infrastructure Council, a Great British Energy company and a Council for Economic Growth.
Extending the frontiers of the sclerotic state is not what Britain needs. A revived Tory party could expose the hollowness of Labour. As Josh Simmons, from the Labour Together think tank, put it: “The Westminster Bubble thinks Labour has it in the bag. But in recent years, the Bubble has an excellent track record of getting it wrong.”