In the early hours of Friday morning we will know whether Theresa May’s decision to call a snap election has paid off. When she announced her U-turn on an early election in April, I wrote here about the danger that a lengthy election campaign centring on Jeremy Corbyn’s suitability for power might produce voter fatigue, might defy expectations, and might draw forth a reaction against the Tories based on anger and resentment of British voters at the Tories’ relentless austerity policies.
A combination of the Labour manifesto with its pork barrel promises for those on low and middle incomes and the Tories’ manifesto which hinted at further hardship for the coping classes has provided the context in which Jeremy Corbyn has somehow emerged as a dogged, populist champion of anti-establishment politics.
Opinion polls now put Labour ahead of the Tories in London and within single digits of Tory support across England.
If the SNP did not exist, and if Scottish Labour were capable of winning most of the Scottish seats at Westminster, these poll figures would be very frightening for the Tory strategists.
The vast majority of English print media are determined to secure a Tory victory at any cost. The last few days of the campaign will be marked by fairly vicious newspaper propaganda against Labour, the SNP, and the possibility of some form of hung parliament in which those parties hold the balance of power. The politics of Project Fear will be unleashed yet again upon the British public for these last few days.
In that context, the odds are still against Corbyn moving into 10 Downing Street at the end of this week. However, as I wrote here in April, there is a very real possibility that Theresa May “might simply end up roughly where she is, if not worse off”.
I also pointed out that a failure to greatly increase the number of Tory MPs on June 8th might weaken May’s position and simply “heat up” the conflict on Europe within the Tory party.
Nothing but a thumping win will suffice to strengthen Theresa May and to vindicate her seemingly incautious decision to call a snap election. Nothing short of that outcome will dispatch Corbyn as a leader.
The real issue which will decide the outcome on Thursday is whether the Tories actually offer hope rather than fear to those who have become politically disenfranchised in post-industrial England. The Tory bid for re-election based on voter fear in respect of Trident, terrorism and national security was best suited to a short three week campaign.
Labour, on the other hand, are offering the same politically disenfranchised cohort real and tangible benefits in relation to health, welfare, the minimum wage and third level education fees. By pitching their electoral bid on such an appeal to self-interest and by offering hope to the hopeless, Labour have taken the focus off Jeremy Corbyn’s political inadequacies and have transformed the political battleground in a manner for which the Tories were simply unprepared.
The problem with Mrs May’s relentless emphasis on the need to negotiate a satisfactory Brexit deal with the EU is precisely that no-one among the Tories will even sketch out what such a deal might credibly be.
All parties want as “free” a free trade deal with the EU as possible. But Labour in addition offers to preserve much the social protection dimension of EU membership.
The Tories are in a bind – many of them claim to want a hard Brexit but none of them is in a position to defend the likely consequences except by vague waffle about world markets and trade deals with the US, Asia and the southern hemisphere.
In truth, this Tory rhetoric is bound to come unstuck in the next 18 months even if it lasts out this week. Their implicit argument that a Labour government could not be trusted to negotiate a satisfactory Brexit deal seems threadbare given their own complete inability to offer any vision to the electorate on what a good Brexit might be.
Accordingly, Thursday’s decision by British voters is being taken very much in the dark. The electorate stand on the bridge of a political submarine which has no periscope.
Another electoral ingredient which Tory strategists did not foresee is the emerging question mark over Theresa May’s reliability and trustworthiness. She repeatedly committed herself against a snap election and then abandoned those commitments on the flimsiest of pretexts. She performed a spectacular U-turn in respect of her manifesto pledge on healthcare for the elderly. She gratuitously dispensed with the “triple lock” on pensions in a manner likely to un-nerve senior citizens who are known to vote in greater numbers than other cohorts of the population.
May’s initial blitzkrieg appeared to be about to deliver Wales, the Midlands, and Northern England from Labour domination. But the pendulum has swung back in those regions and, now it seems, even in London. She is not getting the young vote but that may not be hugely significant unless the young vote turns up at the polling stations.
There is another issue; is Theresa Maye likeable or charismatic? Or is she someone whom the great majority of people would really prefer not to meet or share a meal with?
Does her bearing in public command respect in a Churchillian way or does she come across more as a bird-like figure?
All of these purely impressionistic questions matter because Tory strategy has been based on an impressionistic onslaught on Jeremy Corbyn. The antidote to Corbyn’s semi-shaved roughness would have to be polished, suave, forceful and likeable. Does she tick those boxes sufficiently to capitalise on Corbyn’s weaknesses?
From an Irish perspective, Thursday’s election has little to offer – one way or the other. Gerry Adams and Arlene Foster are exploiting the old communal divisions in the North with equal relish and assiduity. Sinn Féin is trying to pick off moderate nationalists and the DUP is attempting to mop up moderate unionism. That process of polarisation offers little hope for the reconciliation needed to re-establish power sharing and to re-address Brexit issues on this island and their impact on the North.
Alas, there seems little reason for hope that voters in the North will use Thursday as an occasion to punish those who brought down power-sharing and who promoted the Brexit crisis for ideological reasons.
All in all, Thursday’s UK election seems destined to pose more questions than it can resolve. It is hard to imagine that the sun that rises in the early hours of Friday morning will shine on a land bathed in hope or confidence about its future.
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