So, the Tories have had a bad night in the local elections (net loss of 442 so far) and the news looks like it will get worse as the day goes on. Yes, they were bound to see a comedown after the stunning 2015 results under Cameron, but it’s obvious that angst over Brexit is one major factor in the kicking the Conservatives have suffered. With the European elections all but confirmed by Whitehall sources yesterday, May is set to be a miserable month for the PM. She will give her reaction in speeches at the Tory Welsh and Scottish conferences later today, and the question is whether her critics can stop her shrugging them off as mid-term blues.
It was more a question of mid-term yellows overnight as the Lib Dems showed once more they can inflict damage in southern Tory areas with marginal seats. In Bath and North East Somerset, Vince Cable’s party trounced the Conservatives (LD up 23, Con down 24). Arch Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg now has a Lib Dem councillor in his own backyard. Of course, it’s not as if Tory Brexiteer voters defected to an avidly pro-Remain party. Instead, they sat on their hands and refused to vote. Tory group leader Tim Warren said: “We were being told on the streets that people couldn’t trust the Conservatives any more, and wouldn’t vote for them because of Brexit.”
But Mogg-watchers should note that if anyone is ever to take his political scalp in the Parliamentary seat, it will be Labour (which held the pre-boundary change seat from 1997 to 2010). A revived Lib Dem vote will only make things easier for Moggy at the next election as the ‘Remain’ vote splits. It’s a classic example as to why the fragmentation of the main two parties’ votes, a pattern seen over recent years but reversed in 2017, can throw up complex consequences. (Another example: if the Brexit Party stands in the Peterborough by-election, that could split the Tory vote and let Labour keep the seat).
Theresa May’s own backyard of Windsor and Maidenhead sounded alarm bells too. Although the Tories retained control, their massive majority of 38 was slashed to just 5 as the Lib Dems, residents and independents gained seats. The result may have reflected Remainer unease (the borough was 53% Remain in 2016). But it’s May’s backbench Brexit critics who have been out in force overnight. Priti Patel said the PM was ‘part of the problem’, as did Bernard Jenkin. On Today, Crispin Blunt compared May’s Brexit talks with Labour to Ramsay Macdonald’s disastrous minority government.
Meanwhile, perhaps the PM can take heart from the returning officer in Tetbury, Gloucestershire. A Tory councillor won a ward in the Cotswolds seat by just one vote - but only because a ballot paper which was scrawled with ‘I’m voting for Brexit’ was apparently counted as support for the Conservatives. The smack of firm government in the Williamson affair has actually allowed the PM to look more decisive and authoritative than she has for some time. But on Brexit, the margins are much tighter, and she remains a prisoner of a hung Parliament.
So far, Labour hasn’t had a great night either. Although it will be pleased to have taken Trafford, overall it has lost seats (net 79 so far) rather than gained them. If Jeremy Corbyn is to have a hope of winning a general election he needs to be doing much better than that. In areas like Sunderland, Ashfield, and Bolsover the party went backwards as Labour Leave voters stayed at home or switched sides.
The danger of the party’s fudge this week on a second referendum is it ends up looking like a two-fingered salute to both hardcore Leavers and Remainers. Newcastle council leader Nick Forbes (who happens to sit on Labour’s NEC) said he had “never known such a lack of clarity from our national party on the biggest issue of the day”. The “constant fudge” on Brexit is not “good leadership”, he added.
But there’s a wider lesson too from last night, and that’s the rise of the smaller parties. The Greens look on course for their best ever results (note this stunning victory in the Altrincham backyard of 1922 Committee chairman Sir Graham Brady), proving they perhaps their unambiguous pro-referendum message is being harnessed to the Extinction Rebellion/Greta Thunberg uprising. According to Prof Sir John Curtice, independent candidates have won 25% of the vote in the 69 wards where they were standing.
Neither Farage’s Brexit Party nor Change UK stood in yesterday’s elections. Yet the real difficulty for the CHUKers and TIGgers is that their refusal to join forces with the Lib Dems and Greens in non-aggression pacts means that the pro-Remain vote could well splinter in the Euro elections later this month. Heidi Allen said recently that her party was the “natural home of the ‘Remain Alliance’”, but the fact is there is no Remain Alliance of different parties.
We have got hold of Labour’s revised Euro elections leaflet and the reference to the ‘option’ of a public vote is so tiny it looks like the small print of terms-and-conditions caveat on a bank statement. It’s no wonder Farage, whose party is now on a stunning 30% in the latest YouGov poll, is on course to emerge as the big winner. A stick of rock with Leave written through it looks more tasty than the fudge offered by May, Corbyn or even ChangeUK.
In what felt like the quote of the night on the BBC’s election coverage, shadow cabinet minister (and referendum-sceptic) Barry Gardiner blurted out to James Cleverly his summary of the Lab-Con talks on Brexit: “We are in there trying to bail you guys out.” That felt like a quote that will go on every leaflet and poster issued by the Lib Dems, Greens, Brexit Party and Change UK in coming weeks. But Gardiner is not alone. John McDonnell tweeted that the message from voters was ‘Brexit - sort it’.
Next Tuesday, the ‘plenary’ Brexit meeting between Tory ministers and Labour reconvenes. There’s no question that some around Corbyn see last night’s results in the North East and the Midlands (the Tories took Walsall council to add to their Parliamentary shock in 2017) as proof of the need to reassure Labour Leave voters that the party won’t abandon them. Whether that means getting Brexit delivered by supporting joint Lab-Con deal on customs is unclear.
One Cabinet minister I talked to yesterday said that despite the caricature of Tory activists and members as rabidly hard core Brexiteers, the message from most of them was that they really wanted to move on from Brexit as swiftly as possible and talk about other things - and to defeat Corbyn. That theory will surely be tested in any Tory leadership race, though it suggests that a ‘no-dealer’ isn’t guaranteed success if they simply want to prolong the agony by reopening the May deal with Brussels.
For his part, will Corbyn really risk splitting his own party to get a deal passed in Parliament in time to avoid MEPs taking their seats by June 30? It’s one thing to somehow let your backbenches do your dirty work for you, it’s another entirely to be seen to publicly bail out Tory legislation, even if it is sold as ‘Labour’s deal’. Even if Labour could get the government to make concessions on customs, Keir Starmer seems determined to ensure the ‘lock’ of a public vote - a vote that May will never countenance.
If the deadlock just can’t be broken, then we may be heading towards that Halloween deadline set by the EU more quickly than anyone thinks. On our CommonsPeople podcast this week, former top diplomat and Ambassador to Paris Lord Ricketts tells us that he thinks the EU’s patience will run out in late October. As he points out, why would the EU27 grant another extension if the UK has squandered the last one? Especially as it took Macron some real persuading not to veto the seven-month delay.
Watch far-right candidate Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (aka ‘Tommy Robinson’) receive a warm Lancashire welcome yesterday, courtesy of a milkshake-and-vac.
The Gavin Williamson saga drags on. If you or I were accused of putting national security at risk, we may not shrug it off with a Partridge-esque Instagram pic of our pet dogs. After Williamson’s dog-ate-my-homework defence, it was de facto deputy PM David Lidington who turned Rottweiler yesterday as he mocked his infamous Russia remark. Ministers should be candid inside secret meetings and ‘shut up when they get outside’, Lidders jibed. Continuing the canine theme, Lord West pointed out yesterday he had once been court martialled for dropping classified papers while rescuing a dog. But with No.10 making clear to us hacks no crime had been committed by Williamson, it looks like case closed.
As for Cabinet Secretary Sir Mark Sedwill, No.10 confirmed his double-hat of National Security Adviser was now permanent. I’m told the rationale is he has two able deputy NSAs and his Cabinet role is different from predecessors. But that’s unlikely to ally the fears of some that there aren’t enough hours in the day for both jobs.
Aside from Penny Mordaunt, one of the big winners of Williamson’s demise has been new international development secretary Rory Stewart. His promotion is proof that May values loyalty above everything (see Sedwill, Williamson et al), as Stewart has spent months now on every airwave possible selling her deal and her leadership. It’s quite a trick to pull off while simultaneously pitching yourself as the next PM. Few MPs give him a hope in hell, but there’s something endearing about Stewart’s candour about his own ambitions. In Chopper’s Brexit Podcast, he talks of a ‘national deal’ with Corbyn.
COMMONS PEOPLE
Our CommonsPeople podcast is back after its Easter break. Hear us chinwag with ex-National Security Advisor Peter Ricketts about Gavin Williamson’s alleged Huawei leak, Trump and climate change. Open Europe’s Henry Newman tells us of previous Cabinet Office leaks and runs the rule over the chance of a customs union Brexit compromise. Click HERE to listen on Audioboom or below for iTunes.
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