Even activists will shun May at Euro elections
THE Conservatives are on course to lose control of councils across the country next month, Theresa May has been warned, as Ukip “returns from the dead” on the back of mounting anger over delays to Brexit.
Council leaders have told The Sunday Telegraph they are preparing for heavy losses in the local elections, amid fears voters are turning on the party for failing to take the UK out of the European Union on time.
They warn that Tory councils in Leave-voting heartlands, including Peterborough and Southend-on-Sea, will be fighting for “survival” and could see their majorities wiped out in May.
Their concerns have been echoed by Nadhim Zahawi, the education minister, who yesterday warned Mrs May that she would be signing the “suicide note” of the Conservative Party if the UK went ahead with European elections in May.
Mr Zahawi said further delay posed an “existential threat” to the party and would result in a “seismic” political shift, with voters abandoning the centre ground for the hard-Left and farRight. “If we do not deliver Brexit we would be unleashing forces that I think could get this country, and indeed the rest of Europe, into a very bad place,” he added.
David Campbell Bannerman, the Tory MEP, said MPs and councillors were coming up against anger on the doorstep not seen since the poll tax.
“I know places in Norwich, York, the east of England, where councillors have given up canvassing due to the angry, quite aggressive reactions from Conservative voters,” he added.
“These are our people. I really think it could be awful for a lot of hard-work
WELL, she’s still there, clinging to office like a limpet, defying her Cabinet and soldiering on unabashed. Theresa May is using the national crisis she created to tell her fractious party “stick with nurse for fear of worse”. Could it really be worse than this?
Last week the Conservative Party snapped. The sense of loyalty party members traditionally feel towards their leader cracked. Social media was full of pictures of torn-up membership cards. Tory MPs vented their frustrations to an ever-willing media.
Things got so bad that Ann Widdecombe told LBC Radio on Friday that having voted Conservative at every election since 1970, even she had reached the end of her tether and would now seriously consider voting for Nigel Farage’s new insurgent Brexit
ing councillors.” Meanwhile, a letter circulating among Conservative association chairmen warns that Mrs May’s decision to enter into cross-party talks with Jeremy Corbyn is the “last straw” and has resulted in an exodus of “members and activists”.
Addressed to Brandon Lewis, the Conservative Party chairman, it goes on to claim the decision to cut a deal with the Labour leader has left council candidates “fearful we will be decimated” in the local elections.
Urging the Prime Minister to “step aside as soon as possible,” it continues: “Corbyn is being made to look like the Party. She’s far from alone. The dam finally burst when May appeared to abandon yet another of her red lines and decided the only way to get her “deal” over the line was to court Jeremy Corbyn, a man she has described as a dangerous Marxist and unfit for government. Had these talks been ongoing over the past two years, there might have been a chance something could emerge from them, but it’s too late. David Davis tried to convince her to allow cross-party talks right at the start, but she vetoed it.
Last week Gavin Williamson, the Defence Secretary, told Theresa May to her face in Cabinet that the whole idea of talking to Corbyn was “ridiculous”. A majority of her Cabinet was against what she proposed yet she went ahead anyway, and, as usual, caved in to the minority of Remainsupporting Cabinet ministers.
Tory MPs and party activists were up in arms because they knew that if these talks amounted to anything the result would be a betrayal of Brexit.
The only possible conclusion would be that Theresa May would be abandoning one of her key red lines and would agree to Britain remaining in a customs union. Her negotiating team with Labour contained a single Brexit supporter – Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay. Led by three ultraRemainers, it was clear to Tory MPs that the writing was on the wall. The fact that Greg Clark, the Business Secretary, was on the team, rather than Liam Fox, the International Trade Secretary, told us all we needed to know. The only person to gain from these talks is Jeremy Corbyn.
Party members who had been told by the Prime Minister on hundreds of occasions that “no deal is better than a bad deal” were left feeling duped. They trusted May to keep her word, but instead she effectively said to them: “It’s not me, it’s you.” Brexitsupporting Tories were being told they were too thick to understand the nuances, and it should be left to the party elites to sort it out.
Tory MPs felt blackmailed: “Support my deal or get no Brexit at all” was the message conveyed. MP after MP cracked and had grudgingly backed the Withdrawal Agreement. But last week, the talks with Corbyn pushed some MPs back the other way.
There has always been a residual respect for Theresa May. Tory activists would report back that on the doorstep people admired the Prime Minister’s “resilience” and “tenacity”. But that stopped this week. “Tenacity” has turned into “Obstinacy”. “Resilience” has become “Betrayal”.
It now seems the can will be kicked down the road and Article 50 will be extended even further, either until the end of June, or more likely – as the EU is demanding – for at least another year. This means European elections will take place in Britain on May 23.
May will be a catastrophic month for the Conservative Party. The local elections will likely show a net loss of hundreds of Tory councillors, who will lose through no fault of their own. I did a random phone-around of Tory MPs, candidates and activists yesterday. With the exception of one MP, I found not a single one of them who would be voting Conservative in the European elections. To a man and woman they all said they would be voting for the Brexit Party. The European Elections will be a kind of second referendum. The political classes will be sent a very clear message by the electorate: You have betrayed us and we won’t stand for it. Assuming Ukip and the Brexit Party don’t split the pro-Brexit vote, Nigel Farage could sweep the board.
When Nick Boles crossed the floor of the House on Tuesday, he described the Cabinet as “the worst in one hundred years”. It’s certainly the most supine. Time after time the Cabinet allows the Prime Minister to get away with blue murder. They then brief the media with their annoyance and complaints, yet by going along with her they have dipped their hands in the blood of Brexit betrayal. The day of reckoning is not far away. The putative leadership candidates, such as Michael Gove, Jeremy Hunt, Sajid Javid and Matt Hancock, must realise their candidacies will never get off the ground if they put up with this for much longer.
The only people to gain from the chaos of the week are Boris Johnson, Dominic Raab and David Davis. Johnson articulated the thoughts of the whole party when he accused May of “entrusting the final handling of Brexit to Labour”, and made clear he could never countenance Britain staying in a customs union. It was perhaps the moment when Boris became a serious player again.
It is in the next seven days that the reckoning will beckon – not just for the Prime Minister but for the whole Government. We’ll find out whether the “Pizza Club” of Brexit-supporting Cabinet ministers will finally grow a pair and walk out of the Government as a bloc. We’ll find out if Sir Graham Brady will don his grey suit and accompany the Chief Whip into No 10 to tell May that the party has lost confidence in her and she needs to realise the game is up.
The next seven days are going to be ugly, but they may determine whether there is anything to save from the wreckage the Prime Minister has created, or whether the party splits are deepened. If they are, the number of Tory members cutting up their membership cards will turn into a flood – unless they realise that by getting the scissors out, they forfeit their right to vote for a successor.
‘We will find out whether the ‘Pizza Club’ will finally grow a pair and walk out of the Government as a bloc’
Iain Dale presents the Evening Show on LBC Radio. @IainDale