May’s rebuke for EU bullies is election dynamite
EXACTLY when, between the marinated cheese starter and white chocolate sorbet pudding, Jean-Claude Juncker decided Theresa May was “delusional” is unclear.
Whether it was over the leg of duck that ministers said they would not pay the Brexit bill or Mr Juncker produced the 2,000-page Canadian free trade deal remains unknown. But it didn’t take long for the gist of the now infamous Downing Street dinner to make it into the pages of a German newspaper via a “senior Commission source”.
Mr Juncker, the European Commission
president, was “10 times more sceptical” about the chances of a Brexit deal after the meal, Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung was told. Mrs May was variously described in briefings as living in a “parallel reality” and a “different galaxy”, while her demands were dismissed as “incredible” and “completely unreal”.
If the briefings were designed to steal Brussels the upper hand in Brexit talks, Mrs May responded with both barrels on Wednesday.
“Britain’s negotiating position in Europe has been misrepresented in the Continental press,” she said from the steps of Downing Street.
“The European Commission’s negotiating stance has hardened. Threats against Britain have been issued by European politicians and officials. All of these acts have been deliberately timed to affect the result of the general election that will take place on June 8.”
Those who read the newspaper front pages that followed were left in little doubt about the target of the Prime Minister’s attack – bullying Brussels bureaucrats.
But for strategists in the election bunker at Conservative Campaign Headquarters (CCHQ), another audience was in mind: the Brexit voters they needed to win a historic majority.
Why? Because Mrs May’s path to a wipeout victory is built on hoovering up voters who are abandoning Ukip and attracting Labour supporters who backed Leave. That is why the Prime Minister has pitched a vote for her as the patriotic choice – the only way to strengthen Britain’s negotiating hand.
“Theresa May has effectively clothed herself with the mantle of Boudicca,” Neil Hamilton, Ukip’s leader in Wales, said this weekend. Critics claim the fact Mrs May’s logic does not stand up to scrutiny proves the point. Did EU leaders really believe that briefing snippets of a dinner would hand Jeremy Corbyn victory?
Eurosceptics and Cabinet ministers insist otherwise, saying the threat is real. But there is widespread agreement that sideswipes from Brussels play into the hands of the Tories.
“Maybe next time EU leaders could have a group photograph of them all standing there looking out across the Channel,” said Iain Duncan Smith, the
‘The threat of Alex Salmond as puppet master has been replaced with Brussels getting nasty, but the message is the same’
former Conservative leader, of the briefings. “It reminds the British people why they voted to leave the EU.”
Some detect the hand of Sir Lynton Crosby, the “Wizard of Oz” who masterminded the 2015 Tory majority and is back helping the campaign this year.
At the last general election, Sir Lynton used the prospect of the SNP manipulating Ed Miliband to make voters really consider who they wanted in No 10 – a metric David Cameron had a clear lead on.
This time, the threat of Alex Salmond as puppet master has been replaced with Brussels getting nasty, but the message is the same – during unstable times, a strong leader is needed.
“In all elections you need to elevate the risk and the consequences of the other side getting in,” explained Giles Kenningham, Tory director of communications at the last election.
“In 2015, that centred on the threat of a Labour/SNP coalition. It became the big debating point of the election and was the monkey on Labour’s back.
“We raised the threat at the start of the campaign and they failed to kill the idea early on and never recovered.”
He added: “This time you can see how the Conservatives can leverage the issue of Brexit in a similar way. Given Labour are all over the shop on Brexit, it’s a no brainer.”
European diplomats also sense that Mrs May had voters in mind with her No 10 intervention. “This is electioneering. It is an election campaign,” said an EU ambassador. “My hope is when it comes to the end we can put all this behind us.”
The Tory rout at last week’s local elections suggests the tactic is paying off. Ukip lost every council seat they contested bar one – with much of that vote going to the Tories.
Cabinet ministers are gleeful about how Brexit is playing on the doorstep.
Speaking after Mrs May’s intervention, one said: “I’ve just been sitting in the pub and a woman I’ve never met said, ‘I hope you do well in this election and get a good deal for us. I just don’t like this bullying thing.’”
The key for Team May is to keep up the momentum. The greatest threat is complacency, which explains the deadpan reaction to remarkable local election gains. But the excitement is ever present on the campaign trail. “I’ve got a bone to pick with you,” a photographer told the Prime Minister on Thursday as she was visiting Sussex. He said after the last election he put a tenner on her winning the next one. “I got odds of 40 to one,” he said. “Then I lost the ticket.”