It’s madness for Tories to plot against PM
The weakened PM needs support – plotting to bring in a hard-left Labour government is madness
Imagine 318 people in a boat together, approaching stormy seas and being pursued by another boat under a Captain Corbyn that is trying to ram them. Some of them start shouting “lean to the left a bit” and others, “No, to the right.” Still others say “ditch the captain immediately”. And a particularly hard line group say “if we don’t get our way we’ll sink this boat with all of us in it”.
None of us would think there was much chance of the survival of the boat or most of the passengers. Yet this is what Conservative MPS will look like if they’re not careful. It is natural that after a disappointing election campaign there is some vigorous discussion among MPS of the consequences and implications. Indeed, it is necessary that there are such conversations, so that new ideas can be put forward. But the leaking of comments at private dinners, and displaying of public differences at cabinet level over such issues as public sector pay have shown a lack of self-discipline that could be fatal.
Worst of all is the talk of a “kamikaze” group of MPS who will insist on their version of Brexit to the point of bringing down their Government, in the belief that a period of Corbyn rule would be so disastrous that the Tories would only come back stronger in the near future. Such talk may be exaggerated, but there will certainly be many occasions in the coming months, on the forthcoming Repeal Bill alone, when MPS have to choose between the stability of a minority government on the one hand or their own individual preferences on the other.
Any MP thinking it might be better to jeopardise the Government than to swallow a compromise from time to time should get clear in their head now that such thinking is naïve and dangerous in the extreme. A Labour government under their current leadership would indeed be a disaster for the country, but there is no certainty that it would be a short one.
Those of us who lived through the 1997 election, and had to pick up the pieces of a shattered party afterwards, know that once you are one day out of power you can be many years from ever being back in it again. Failing to win a majority last month was not clever, but pushing the weakened Government over the brink would be unforgivable madness on the part of any Conservative. There is no way of bringing about a small disaster without accidentally producing a national catastrophe.
Most MPS, and just about all the long-suffering activists on whom they depend, know this very well and are behaving with due restraint. They should continue to do so as Brexit negotiations start to throw up a mass of tricky issues. One is the future role of the European Court of Justice. It is clearly untenable for it to rule on the rights of EU nationals in the UK after we have left the EU. But if the Government ends up negotiating a deal which sets up a joint procedure between British courts and the ECJ, to settle disagreements on the rights of each others’ citizens, financial regulation, customs procedures and other issues, will that make it worth bringing the house down and installing a hard-left administration? No, not in the view of the vast majority of Conservative voters and people who voted to leave the EU.
Or take Euratom – the European Atomic Energy Community, which is legally distinct from the EU, and helps the UK receive supplies of nuclear fuel along with funding and experts for cutting edge research. The Government has said we are leaving it, but now some MPS make an excellent case for staying in it – no one voted Leave with this issue in mind. If ministers were to reverse their position on this, or pursue “associate membership”, showing they were listening to businesses and researchers, is it worth having a huge row to insist on a “purer” version of Brexit? No, of course it isn’t.
On domestic issues too, Conservative MPS will have to be ready to compromise, not only with each other, but also with other parties. Theresa May is absolutely right, in the speech she is about to give, to make a virtue of asking other parties for their ideas. Yet this initiative will only sustain its credibility if the Government adopts some suggestions they make. The next step should be to establish cross-party meetings on such issues as mental health, house building, prison reform, infrastructure planning, this week’s report by Mathew Taylor on employment practices and other issues on which no party has a monopoly of good ideas. Make it a serious process and put the other parties on the spot.
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If Tories can muster the good, collective sense to find common ground with others on these sorts of topics while developing their own answers on appealing to young people at future elections, they still have time on their side.
Given further years in opposition, the Labour Party has more convulsions ahead of it. It is more divided on Brexit and its terms than the Conservatives. The debate about establishing a new, moderate party goes on. The best strategy for Conservatives includes giving their opponents the time and space to make their own mistakes, while picking up their good ideas or exposing them for not having any.
But time is only on the side of those who can sit sufficiently still to avoid rocking that very vulnerable boat. When thinking of their future leadership, the wise MP will sit, wait, watch, and keep their own counsel. Make those who aspire to be prime minister work, sweat, perform, and show they really have what it takes. Keep them guessing as to how much support they will have, and under pressure to be part of a team – a team in which there is already a Prime Minister, who needs their support.
When Lord Melbourne’s ministry was in a precarious position in the 1830s, he used a different metaphor, telling his Cabinet: “We must indeed all hang together, or most assuredly, we shall all hang separately” – blocking the doorway until they had all agreed. That is what the postelection Conservative Party of 2017 needs to remember before it leaves Westminster for the summer recess – and it requires a determination to stick together, along with the discretion that should go naturally with it.