Tory activists urge May to call snap election

There are difficulties, and risks, in an early poll – but the political rewards may be too tempting to resist

THERESA MAY has been urged by the Tory grassroots to call an early election and capitalise on her huge lead over Labour in the polls.

A new poll yesterday suggested more than two and a half million people who voted Labour in last year’s general elec- tion think Mrs May would make a better prime minister than Jeremy Corbyn. Ed Costelloe, the chairman of the Grassroots Conservatives, said Mrs May would “win big time” and that activists would back an election soon after the Labour leadership contest is over in September.

Mrs May is coming under increasing pressure after ruling out a snap elec- tion during the Tory leadership campaign. A former Cabinet minister said: “If we get to the point where we have effectively delivered most of the programme that we went to the country with in 2015 and it’s looking like a good time to call an election, then I wouldn’t write it off completely.”

If life begins at 40, so does the pressure on new mid-term prime ministers to call a snap general election. The poll rating of 40 per cent has a magical allure: it casts a spell on party leaders and their inner circles, makes them feel invincible, tricks them into considering going to the country. Like a bewitching casino croupier, it tells the prime minister of the day that he or she can increase their majority and secure their own mandate with just one more roll of the dice. It is a doubleor-nothing gamble. The risk is great, but the reward is even greater.

Under Theresa May’s 15-day-old premiership, the Conservatives are now consistently polling 40 per cent or higher. The lead over Labour is commanding: as high as 16 points in an ICM poll this week. Labour has never been more disunited. Mrs May ruled out a snap election within hours of becoming PM, but it is hard to believe she is not now reconsidering it. Some MPs are urging her to call one. The 40 per cent spell is working its magic.

Anyone engaged in those private discussions inside No 10 must be thinking about the last time a prime minister took over mid-term at the start of a summer, enjoyed a honeymoon with poll ratings at 40 per cent and higher, and was enticed into considering a snap election. Gordon Brown’s summer of 2007 coincided with a torrid time for David Cameron that, in the same way Jeremy Corbyn’s troubles started before Mrs May became Prime Minister, pre-dated the handover of power at No 10. Mr Cameron had enraged his own MPs over grammar schools in May 2007, and his leadership crisis only deepened after Mr Brown became prime minister.

In the end, Mr Brown famously shrank back from calling an election in October, at least in part because he was spooked by George Osborne’s announcement of an inheritance tax cut and Mr Cameron’s bullish conference speech. Mr Brown’s closest aides believed this decision was a mistake, and hindsight almost certainly proves them right. The Tory inheritance tax policy was appealing but, at the time, Labour still had a strong record on the economy – the financial crash was still a year away. Mr Brown could have become prime minister with his own electoral mandate, and Mr Cameron would have been just another failed Tory leader.

This counter-factual version of history must be taunting the May team right now. But the Prime Minister, like Mr Brown, is cautious. The risks of an autumn 2016 election are arguably greater than those Labour faced in 2007. Mrs May would be asking an electorate fed up with the turbulence of politics to vote in another national poll just months after the referendum, and less than two years after the last general election. She would be asking her own MPs and activists to go through another exhausting campaign, this time when the streets are colder and darker. And, as Article 50 is not likely to be triggered until next year, she would be risking the rage of Tory Eurosceptics who would fear that Brexit could be undone if Labour – however miraculously – won power. Boundary changes, which favour the Tories, are not yet in place.

Most risky of all, Mrs May would have to navigate the constraints of the Fixed Term Parliaments Act, brought in by the Coalition, and under which snap elections are only permitted if more than two thirds of MPs vote for a motion approving one, or if there is a motion of no confidence in the government. Given that many moderate Labour MPs would not wish to see their seats lost in what would be a brutal election, and that some Tory MPs would also be against one, it is difficult to see how either process would work without Mrs May being blamed for the fallout.

She could also repeal the whole Act on a simple majority, but that majority remains wafer thin. Doing so was also not in the Conservative manifesto and, even assuming that she did get it through the Commons, it would have no guarantee of passing the Lords, where the Conservatives are in a significant minority. To overcome that problem, a really determined PM might consider creating a raft of new Conservative peers, but it would be a dramatic move: there are 798 peers; only 243 of them are Tories.

But if the potential ructions are bigger than in 2007, the prize is even greater. Labour is in a far worse state than Mr Cameron’s Conservatives were nine years ago, and would likely be trounced in a 2016 election. Mrs May would not only increase her majority, now barely in double figures, but secure her own mandate to do what she wants on Brexit. As it stands, the Prime Minister presides over a fragile unity in the parliamentary Conservative Party. If there is a hint of compromise on withdrawal from the EU, the Eurosceptics will circle overhead, blocking not only her plans on Europe but all areas of policy.

But if she were to win an election, she could show them a clean pair of kitten heels. If she can navigate the Fixed Term Act, then, she should call that election, however much she regards it as a gamble. She would become the most powerful Conservative prime minister for decades, and what a prize that would be.