Get on with it! THERESA MAY’S
Are we all committed Corbynistas, Brexiteers or Remainers? No, a silent majority just want to tell Mrs May to . . .
THE Government is in di s array. Divisi ons now run so deep that the Cabinet is about to be incarcerated in Chequers a nd wil l reportedly not be released until they have finally agreed something resembling a Brexit strategy. Tory 1922 Committee chairman Sir Graham Brady has been rechristened The Postman, such is the weight of letters he is reportedly carrying calling for Theresa May’s removal.
And yet no one seems to have informed the British people. Last week three separate polls, from three separate companies, were published. They all told the same story. Support for Mrs May and the Conservatives is increasing. Support for Jeremy Corbyn and Labour is in decline.
Such was the clarity of the trend that Downing Street l i fted i ts monastic prohibition on commenting on opinion surveys. ‘Just one poll but…’, tweeted Mrs May’s taciturn Chief of Staff Gavin Barwell, after YouGov showed the Tories with a four-point lead. He might have added, ‘… we can’t quite believe it, but we’ll take it.’
For months, Conservative Ministers and MPs have been waiting for political gravity to finally assert itself. ‘Labour’s going to open up a significant lead soon, and then people will move,’ one anti-May plotter told me hopefully before Christmas. But they haven’t. In fact, the opposite has happened.
Within Conservative headquarters, people are beginning to whisper guardedly about The Silent May Majority. According to strategists, beyond the fetid Westminster hot-house, their private polling is beginning to detect a small but discernable and favourable move in attitudes towards the Prime Minister. And they hope that with it, they may finally begin to shift views of the Government and reverse their fortunes.
The Silent May Majority is a diverse group. Firstly, it is made up of a large section of the electorate who are sick to the back teeth with politics. ‘ People have had enough,’ one Tory adviser told me. ‘They’ve had a PR referendum, a Scottish referendum, a Euro referendum, European elections, local elections and two general elections. They’re tuning out. They just want the politicians to leave them in peace for a bit.’
To t hese people who do not engage in the daily trench warfare of social media, or follow every twist and turn of the Brexit negotiations, Mrs May cuts a counter-culturally attractive figure. In the heat of a general election campaign she was exposed. But her unpretentious, awkward style grants her a staid authenticity during political peacetime.
Another thing that purportedly distinguishes The Sil ent May Majority is an agnostic attitude to Brexit. There is a perception that Britain is now divided into two monolithic ideological blocks – the 52 per cent v the 48 per cent. But within Downing Street they believe they have identified a ‘third way’, a tortuous but nonetheless navigable route between the kamikaze Remainers and Brexiteers.
‘OK, it looks like a mess,’ concedes one No 10 official, ‘but this might be the only way to get this thing done. She nudges a bit here, then nudges a bit there. Everyone grumbles, but we keep moving forward.’ As well as keeping the warring Cabinet factions at bay, it’s a strategy that May’s allies believe aligns her with the bulk of popular opinion. ‘ This is where most people are,’ one explains. ‘They’re not hardcore Remainers or hardcore Leavers they’re hardcore Just-Get-On-With-Iters.’
Conservative insiders are also heartened by what they now view as the formal end of Corbynmania. While they are loathe to claim we have reached peak-Corbyn, they believe the sense of national crisis generated by last year’s shockingly close Election result, and the Grenfell tragedy, has dissipated.
Partly this is because Corbyn’s ‘permanent campaign’ is no longer resonating with an exhausted electorate. But it’s also because the spectacle of The Absolute Boy embarking on a year-long victory lap – in the wake of an Election he actually lost – is turning off the voters.
‘ We were delighted when they announced another Corbyn victory concert for this summer,’ one Tory strategist told me, ‘ because it’s starting t o shift t he dynamic between him and Theresa. It’s almost like he’s becoming the Establishment figure, and she’s the underdog and the outsider.’
Such views aren’t confined to the Conservative Party. Despite a concerted attempt last week by Corbyn’s inner circle to pour cold water on the latest polls, there’s even concern among some of his traditional supporters at Labour’s failure to – literally – maintain momentum after June’s upset.
There is said to be growing tension between John McDonnell, who is keen on some cosmetic softening of the Corbynite brand, and hardcore Corbyn allies who remain wedded to a ‘one more Socialist heave’ strategy. As one moderate Labour MP put it: ‘ When John McDonnell is the pragmatist in the room, it shows you how far the party still has to go.’
STILL not quite as far as those at the Conservatives’ Matthew Parker Street HQ would like. There is still trepidation at the way their internal polling failed to pick up the magnitude of the dramatic switch to Labour in the closing weeks of last year’s campaign, to the extent that new party chairman Brandon Lewis has ordered a complete review of the party’s ‘analytics’ – the data modelling used to manage constituency targeting and communications planning.
There is also pessimism at what their internal numbers indicate for the forthcoming local elections, particularly in the Labour bastion of London. But after the recent sense of disarray, last week’s polls have brought some unlikely respite. The sound and fury at Westminster has become deafening. But out in the country, The Silent Majority still has Theresa May’s back.