This summer, parties of the political season come in different grades. It isn’t always warm prosecco and overheated blather. Sometimes it’s cold Pol Roger and horses’ mouths. And after a few sips and some surreptitious whinnying, I have to conclude that the plot against Theresa May is a little more serious than I had thought.
It is still more likely than not, though, that she can last a couple of years. Why? First, because a Tory leadership contest would throw yet another huge spanner into the delicate Brexit negotiations — having paused everything for a general election campaign, to go back to Brussels and say: “Sorry, chaps. Can we have another month or so out while we decide who the prime minister is?” would make the UK look terminally ridiculous.
Second, it’s really hard to see how yet another prime minister, chosen, not elected, could face down the national clamour for a second general election — one the Conservatives tend to think they would lose. Most of the ministers I talk to say this. They assume that May, who seems to have gathered a bit of renewed confidence, will oversee the negotiations and then make way for a new leader, almost certainly from a younger generation than the current cabinet, in the spring of 2019.
But there is a counter-argument, which goes like this. She doesn’t have the authority to do the Brexit deal. Even if she can agree the necessary compromises over law and money, she would find it almost impossible to sell them to the Tory party. Ergo, there has to be a new leader before too long.
Anti-May plotters concede that the issue over halting the negotiations is a problem. But as to the general election, they point out that David Cameron’s Fixed-Term Parliaments Act could protect Tory mutineers, however cross the country felt. And that isn’t good news for May. “It was meant to be a cord to bind a prime minister’s hands; we can make it a noose.”
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So we could see an attempted putsch this autumn. Maybe some bold character breaks ranks and announces an open challenge. More likely, a letter from a large number of Tory MPs suddenly falls through the Downing Street letterbox. “More in sorrow than in anger . . . grateful for your patriotic service . . . but with heavy hearts . . . no longer feel full confidence . . .” That kind of thing.
The Tory party conference in Manchester will clearly be important, though traditionally prime ministers have enough levers there to keep control. It now looks as if the European repeal bill will be a bigger problem. And there are plenty of other potential parliamentary crises ahead — over public spending, Northern Ireland and taxation. So the next question is how the various key players should behave.
May herself has to start with a full-hearted rapprochement with her chancellor, Philip Hammond. Even if he is isolated inside the Tory party, he speaks for the City and has the crucial decisions about public spending, as the economy slows, in his hands. He has been in close contact over the past few months with David Davis, trying to create a common position on Brexit.
The prime minister may be more wary of Davis, who is now in pole position to take over. But he needs to avoid a protracted and bloody contest. That means persuading Boris Johnson not to stand. How likely do you think that is? Me too.
If a triumvirate of May, Hammond and Davis presents a fait accompli on the negotiations, the Tory party will probably accept it. If not, not. In short, restoration of the government must start with a strengthening of the human triangle at its heart. The rest of the cabinet then have to decide whether they back the prime minister for real. The danger in colluding with the general plotting — and there are plenty of senior MPs on manoeuvres — is that they unleash a bloody farce of rivalries. Once this kind of thing starts, nobody can control what happens next. Frankly: how mad are they feeling?
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The next question is for Jeremy Corbyn. He’s had much harmless fun with May’s plea for opposition help — sending her a signed copy of the Labour manifesto, that kind of thing. But if the five-year parliament act is a problem for May, it’s also a problem for him. His party has to accept it is perfectly possible that the Tories stay in (circumscribed and muted) power for five years. That’s a long time. Are repeated “Tories out!” marches the best game plan?
An alternative would be to maximise Labour’s parliamentary position. A united opposition front on issues such as the customs union, and hostility to further government cuts, could win over enough Tory MPs to change the direction of the government.
“Plenty of senior MPs are on manoeuvres, but they could unleash a bloody farce of rivalries
There are plenty of senior Conservatives who believe that, because of uncertainty over Brexit and the possibility of a recession, Britain needs a major fiscal boost. Hammond may whiten at that, but it’s an argument that isn’t going away.
As we have already seen over more minor issues such as the winter fuel payment and funding for Northern Irish women wanting abortions in England, this is not a government that is going to be able to hold the line on every occasion.
Is it possible, therefore, that a wily Labour opposition, working closely with the other parties and some Tories, could find that, having lost the general election, it is actually exercising a new kind of influence? That we could see a shadow Labour government, less radical than its own manifesto, but nevertheless nudging Britain in a new direction on the economy and Brexit?
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The danger for Corbyn would be that, come the next election, voters might conclude that austerity had already been pushed to one side and a softer, gentler exit from the EU had been achieved, and that therefore there was no need to change horses. On the other hand, Labour would have shown that much of its thinking on the economy and the EU was — far from being extreme or dangerous — practical and popular. “You’ve seen what we can do with a bit of influence: let’s see what we can do in power.” It’s something for Corbyn to cogitate about on his allotment over the summer.
But there is one further, crucial, point. Whatever happens when we leave the EU, and under whatever government, we have no decent future unless we radically improve our productivity. What’s the point of free-trade deals if we don’t have the services and goods other countries want? If there is one huge area for Labour and the Tories to come together and agree on, it’s a national crusade for higher productivity — a new commercial and industrial strategy for new times. What a dull thought to end on; but without it, we’re sunk.
Dominic Lawson is away