The prime minster unwittingly created the best possible circumstances for his party to be eclipsed by Reform
Source - Daily Telegraph - 14/06/24
In the least surprising, but no less dramatic, development of the general election campaign, one poll has placed Nigel Farage’s Reform UK ahead of the Conservatives.
It may be an outlier, and the one-point lead is within the margin of error. But that hardly matters. The fact that Rishi Sunak’s party is vying for second place with a Right-wing rival speaks volumes about just how disastrous the Conservative campaign has been so far.
And the Conservatives know the game is up. You can almost see the panic in their eyes every time they appear on our TV screens. From a psychological perspective, they have already conceded; they’ve gone beyond denial and are fast on the way to anger and acceptance.
But this is about more than a single campaign. The Conservatives have been written off before; there were many obituaries written in the aftermath of its 1997 rout at the hands of Tony Blair, when it was reduced to what was then considered a “rump” of just 165 seats – literally half of the number of MPs it began the campaign with.
There will be those at party headquarters, eyeing the polls with a rising sense of panic, who might consider that total as something of a victory this time round. Thirteen years after that defeat, after all, the Tories were back in office, albeit only with the reluctant, gullible aid of the Liberal Democrats.
But if further polls were to confirm the Conservatives’ third place in the popular vote, such a recovery may not be on the cards, ever. In 1983, Labour’s greatest fear was being eclipsed by the SDP, which finished just two percentage points behind it in terms of votes (and considerably further behind in terms of seats). Coming third would have signalled an existential crisis for Labour then, just as doing so in 2024 would signal that long-awaited re-alignment of the Right that has been repeatedly predicted but never happened.
Sunak will not go down in history as a victorious leader, but he will be remembered for giving Farage his best opportunity to capture the political agenda and forcing the Tories into political accommodation with its populist rivals. In this accomplishment, the prime minister need share the credit with no one else. True, he inherited a shambles of a government from his two immediate predecessors. But it was Sunak who made the crucial decisions that led to historically high levels of taxation and, at the same time, record net immigration.
His decision to call a general election early, before a single flight was able to transport failed asylum applicants to Rwanda, speaks volumes about the prime minister’s own faith in a policy that, more than any other, had his personal imprimatur.
It is these two failures, on immigration and tax, that have sealed Sunak’s doom and provided a unique opportunity to Farage. For a substantial section of the electorate, these two policy areas are at the top of their list of political priorities. If a Conservative government enjoying an 80-seat majority is unable to guarantee low taxes and low immigration, what are Conservative governments for?
The days of complacently warning voters that they’d better suck it up or face the prospect of a Labour government are over; as just one poll has shown, Reform presents, superficially at least, a plausible alternative, especially if popular support can translate into swathes of seats instead of simply splitting the Right-wing vote.
That may be unlikely even now, but never underestimate Farage’s ability to take control of a political narrative, however shaky its foundations. If he is able to do so, he can take much credit. But not all of it. The rest should be given to Sunak himself.
The prime minister could have persuaded the nation that the high tax burden was a consequence of his own (popular) furlough scheme, paying millions of workers to stay at home doing nothing during the pandemic. But, like Labour after 2010, he ceded control of that narrative to his opponents.
He could have driven ministers harder to meet the government’s own house-building targets, forcing planning reform through to do so.
Instead of grandstanding in front of his conference about cancelling the northern phases of HS2 – a decision for which his party received precisely zero extra votes – he could have followed through on Boris Johnson’s creditable commitment to actually building new infrastructure projects.
He could have progressed the Rwanda scheme to the point where his predictions of creating a deterrent to small boat arrivals on the south coats might actually have been tested.
Instead Rishi Sunak has created the best possible circumstances for his party to be eclipsed by Reform. That may not happen, of course; history suggests the Tories will live to fight another day, perhaps a day that is very far away. But Sunak will not be part of that story. His legacy will haunt the Conservative Party for years to come. And it will never fail to bring a smile of satisfaction to the lips of Nigel Farage.
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