The case for Tory optimism

The comments made on social media by Rory Stewart MP are one of the most disappointing features of a Conservative party leadership contest that so far is proving deeply underwhelming. Stewart’s schtick is that he is the deep thinker in the pack, versed in history with a feel for the rhythms of power and his party. Yet one or two other Tory leadership contenders can think, and they are playing a cleverer game than Rory by not saying too much, yet.

Against the backdrop of the Conservative party’s annihilation in the Europe elections, Stewart is giving interview after interview and tweeting out his takes, only increasing the impression that this hitherto intriguing, serious, pragmatic figure is losing his way. What is it about running for the leadership of the Conservative party that it does this to good people?

Right away on Friday, Stewart said he would not serve under Boris Johnson, because Boris if he became Prime Minister would contemplate no deal if the EU won’t consider any further changes to the Withdrawal Agreement. That makes Stewart, a real talent in a party that needs all the talent it can get, a hostage to fortune at a time of extreme fluidity and volatility. Who knows what the situation will be by the autumn? Who knows what the situation will be next week? When asked he should simply have said it is always an honour to serve his country and say he is focused on making the arguments about what the country needs.

No deal must not be allowed to happen, Stewart tweeted at the editor of the Financial Times Lionel Barber.

“We need to acknowledge that a no-deal Brexit would in a single day undermine 400 years of our reputation for economic stability and competence. Any credible economic strategy for our future should rule it out.”

That is a questionable, simplistic reading of history. Of course there are serious risks with no deal, or with a managed no deal, but to present it as something uniquely terrible in four centuries is overkill.

Britain’s successful economic story is not some model of stability and competence. Four centuries takes in the South Sea Bubble disaster, the 19th century banking crises, the financial calamity of the First World War, the gold standard debacle, devaluation, the ERM humiliation which actually boosted the economy, and the banking crisis in 2008 which hit Britain disproportionately hard because the authorities had recklessly allowed our banks to become especially large. Our economic history is messy and it involves regular bursts of disruption, reinvention, emergency and innovation.

Rory Stewart must know all this, surely? So why is he trying to convince us all that leaving the EU without a deal – risky, of course – is somehow equivalent to the Black Death? Tory leadership contest mania, innit.

Perhaps this is wrong and the International Development Secretary, for now, has identified some secret, magical path to the Tory leadership and Number 10 that involves refusing to serve the likely winner of his party’s leadership contest and then allying with anti-Brexit outgoing cabinet ministers. But to do what? Bring down the ruined government? Break away and merge with what is left of Change UK? Join the Lib Dems? It all seems like a terrible waste of someone intelligent who should be in at the heart of things as his party desperately attempts to rebuild itself after the catastrophe of Theresa May’s leadership.

Rory Stewart’s baffling meanderings are the least of the Tory party’s troubles after the European elections, of course. The Tories scored just 9% in Thursday’s poll. Many hours after they suffered a historic catastrophe most of the party’s upper echelons – what is left of its leadership class – had still to make any comment.

In the South East of England – the South East of England – the Conservatives secured just 10.2% of the vote. The Brexit party scored 36%.

Nationally, they put on the worst performance in the party’s long history. If this had been a first past the post election at Westminster they would have won zero seats. The decision by the cabinet to allow the hapless May to plough ahead with holding the European elections has enabled a populist party – the Brexit party – to get much more than a foothold. If the Tories cannot shut it down, put it out of business by delivering its key demand, the Tories are looking at virtual extinction.

So, how on earth can there be a case for the Tories feeling remotely optimistic?

Although the Tory party’s plight is bad, it is not quite as bad as the plight of the Labour party. For the Conservatives there is – just, if they are adroit and lucky – a way through if they get the UK out the EU.

For Labour, there appears to be no credible or obvious way through. In Remain parts of the country, Labour MPs and activists are demanding that the party switch to backing a referendum rerun and remain, to reverse the swing to the Lib Dems. That may be fine, but how on earth is that going to work in a Labour heartland such as what used to be the Labour dominated North East of England?

The party currently holds 26 out out of 29 Westminster seats in the North East region. At these European elections the Brexit party scored 39%. Labour got 19%. In Wales, traditionally Labour, the Brexit party won 32% of the vote. Labour got 15% of the vote  – in Wales! Incidentally, in pro-Remain Scotland Labour came fifth – fifth! – on only 9.3% of the vote and the SNP landed on an impressive 38%. Scotland used to be the land of John Smith, Donald Dewar, Robin Cook and Gordon Brown. No more.

If, in response in England, Labour goes metropolitan Remain, which Corbyn opposes, it sends a message to Brexity voters in its traditional areas that it despises them. If it leans Brexit or stays ambiguous and confused – which most of its MPs and members don’t want – then the Lib Dems continue to surge, with added MPs from the humiliated Change UK soon.

Whichever way Labour flips it flops.

The Tories face their own version of this dilemma of course, and there are no shortage of “one nation” Brexit-sceptic senior ministers and MPs lining up to say that if the Tories try to win back Brexit voters they will alienate middle of the road Lib Dem voters they need. There are parts of the map of England – London for example – where that is clearly true. But those new Lib Dem voters don’t seem much interested in the concept of a “wet” Tory leader tacking on a customs union and passing May’s deal maybe with a referendum. Those voters want to remain. They’re gone already, furious at the Tory farce. This process may make some previously reliable Tory seats unsafe, and some strange seats in Brexity areas winnable. Such turmoil is unavoidable. Especially when the electoral map is being remade, this time along “values” lines, cutting across old loyalties, class distinctions and electoral geography.

As Tim Shipman, the political editor of The Sunday Times and chronicler in his books of the Games of Thrones-style Brexit saga, put it today:

“Chances are the next general election will be Brexit v Remain. If the Tories aren’t the Brexit party they are finished. If Labour isn’t the remain party they are screwed. Both have to accept that they are seeking a different coalition of voters and seats. First to adapt survives.”

The Tories can’t become a remain party, obviously. Their only option is championing leave and trying to make the insurgent Brexit party history by outplaying it.

If they can do that, and it will be extremely difficult, the Conservatives have other advantages in what lies beyond Brexit. They are about to change leaders, at last, while it seems Labour is going to stick with the discredited and deeply unpopular Corbyn. The Tories have a chance – no more than that – of a reset under new leadership. They will also need a new Chancellor dedicated to dealing with the after effects of austerity in local government and policing in particular.

Longer term, if the Tories make it that far, the new dispensation and novel electoral and geographical divisions open up another possibility for a party that looks ruined today. They stand a chance of rebuilding a relatively united centre-right post-Brexit. Why? The Lib Dems are back as a force, pushing into the realms of the low twenties in the Westminster vote, depriving Labour of middle class pro-European votes. Labour is scunnered in Scotland, waylaid in Wales, miserable in the Midlands, knackered in the North of England and lashed by the Lib Dems in London. Where beyond certain other urban centres is Labour potentially strong? Against a divided centre-left in the next decade, the Tories could win.

The case for Tory optimism only applies if they somehow cleanly get Britain out of the European Union this autumn. No pressure.

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