Boris Johnson is a sorcerer who has run out of
spells, a wizard with a broken wand
Andrew
Rawnsley
The Tory leader tried every trick he knew and his
party still suffered a double-whammy of byelection defeats
Sun 26 Jun
2022 08.30 BST
It is
sometimes said that the Conservative party is capable of only two emotions:
complacency and panic. At the moment, it exists in both conditions simultaneously.
Boris Johnson and his shrivelling band of acolytes responded to a double-whammy
of byelection defeats with complacent shrugs. Speaking to journalists
yesterday, he claimed to be “actively thinking about the third term”. Whatever
he’s been inhaling, it’s not reality. The panic is among the many Tory MPs who
are now wetting their beds after their party was pulverised in Tiverton and
Honiton, previously a blue bastion, and rejected in Wakefield, one of the red
wall prizes they took at the last general election. Tories have long been
apprehensive about how they could please both their traditional supporters in
the south and their newer voters in northern England. As it turns out, they
have infuriated both wings of their 2019 electoral coalition.
Labour’s
victory in Wakefield is a timely fillip for Sir Keir Starmer that may subdue
some of the internal chuntering about the Labour leader’s performance. This
time last year, the Tories reckoned their grip on red wall seats was still firm
and had evidence to prove it when they inflicted a humiliating defeat on Labour
at the Hartlepool byelection. Sir Keir’s leadership went through what one of
his friends calls a “near-death experience”. Taking Wakefield secures his
position unless Durham police issue him with a fine. The biggest caveat about
the result is that the fall in the Tory vote was more than twice as large as
the rise in Labour support. This suggests that discontent with the
Conservatives was a more powerful factor than enthusiasm for Labour. That ought
to prod Sir Keir to start communicating his ambitions for Britain with more
confidence and boldness.
The Lib
Dems have pulled off many byelection spectaculars over the decades, but
Tiverton and Honiton is genuinely unprecedented. By numerical size of the
majority overturned, there has been nothing like it in the history of
byelections. It was a blistering rebuke to the government from an area of Devon
that has not had a non-Conservative MP for well over a century. This makes a
hat-trick of thumping byelection wins for Sir Ed Davey’s party in the past 12
months and they were accompanied by a strong showing in May’s local elections.
After years when Conservative MPs thought they had little to fear from the Lib
Dems, the “yellow peril” is back to menace the Tories in their shire and
suburban heartlands.
It is
obviously true that byelections can be an unreliable guide to what will happen
at the next general election, but they still tell us a story about public
opinion, and that shapes the political mood. After conversations with
frightened colleagues, one former Conservative cabinet minister reports that
these terrible results for his party “reinforces the feeling that the
locomotive is inexorably heading towards the buffers”.
The ‘yellow peril’ is back to menace the Tories in
their shire and suburban heartlands
The most
alarming development for them is the clear evidence that the anti-Tory majority
is learning anew how to use its votes most efficiently. There was no
encouragement of tactical voting at the 2017 and 2019 general elections because
a Jeremy Corbyn-led Labour party was highly antagonistic towards the Lib Dems
and vice versa. That’s changed. These results vindicate the unspoken pact
between Sir Keir and Sir Ed to concentrate their efforts where each has the
best chance of unseating a Tory. They demonstrate that there is no need for the
parties to strike a formal electoral deal. A nudge was enough to get voters
behind the progressive party best placed to beat the Conservatives.
In Devon, a
large chunk of Labour’s previous support switched behind the Lib Dems as the
most effective instrument to express anger with the Tories by depriving them of
the seat. In Yorkshire, Lib Dem voters reciprocated by giving a helping hand to
the Labour candidate. As the distinguished psephologist Peter Kellner remarks:
“Tactical voting is back with a vengeance.”
It has also
been evident in other recent byelections as voters have learned that the most
potent way to punish the government is to mobilise behind the challenger with
the optimal chance of evicting the Conservatives. One senior Tory says: “The
worry for us is that these byelections are teaching people how to hurt us.”
Split opposition votes helped the Conservatives to turn a minority vote share
into an 80-seat parliamentary majority in 2019. Tactical opposition voting has
great potential to sweep that majority away next time around. Nearly all of the
Labour and Lib Dem target seats are held by the Conservatives. Lending each
other votes is a win-win for them and a lose-lose for the Tories. The scale of
tactical voting seen at these byelections is unlikely to be fully replicated at
a general election, but even a milder version of it will greatly enhance the
chances of removing the Conservatives from power.
This erstwhile devotee of the Johnson cult has broken
free of his brainwashing to become another Tory to realise that the prime
minister has to go
A shiver is
going around members of the cabinet looking for a spine to run down. Craven senior
ministers continue to prevaricate about doing something, but there was a
batsqueak of dissent from one of the government’s lesser figures. I’ve heard a
lot of Tories saying that the most telling event of the past 48 hours was
Oliver Dowden’s resignation as co-chair of the party. This is regarded as
notable within his party because he was an early endorser of Mr Johnson’s
leadership campaign three years ago and has been a slavish apologist for the
prime minister throughout “Partygate”. In the early hours of Friday morning, Mr
Dowden was suddenly reacquainted with his conscience. Or perhaps he had finally
exhausted his appetite for trying to defend an indefensible leader. Or perhaps
he realised he was in the frame as the fall guy for these byelections and chose
to jump before he was scapegoated. “We cannot carry on with business as usual,”
he wrote in his resignation letter. That is hardly a clarion cry for change
with the punch of “in the name of God, go”. Yet it still matters because it
tells us that this erstwhile devotee of the Johnson cult has broken free of his
brainwashing to become another Tory to realise that the prime minister has to
go.
Some of
those who tried to oust the Tory leader a fortnight ago can be heard ruefully
conjecturing that they might have got the 180 votes they needed had the
confidence vote been triggered after these results. There are few who expect
that another attempt to remove him is imminent, but many think he will be very
lucky to get through the next year without a further challenge. “More faggots
have been piled on the pyre,” says one of the Tories who wants him out.
For most
Conservative MPs, the debate about whether to remove him has never been about
morality. He would have been long gone if that was the test. The argument has
been about electability. He has been sustained by those Tories who believed he
was the only one of them with the appeal to attract traditional Labour voters
in places such as Wakefield and traditional true blues in areas such as
Tiverton and Honiton. That case has not survived contact with the voters in
these very different parts of England. In red wall and blue wall alike, Mr
Johnson certainly attracted votes – against his party. So much also for the
notion that he can revive himself by redividing the country along the battle
lines of Brexit. Both these constituencies voted to leave the EU, but now
reject the Tories. Either they are becoming disillusioned with the evident
failures of Brexit or they no longer regard it as the most important issue.
Either way,
Brexit sorcery has ceased to work for Mr Johnson. In the run-up to these
byelections, he attempted to firm up the Tory vote by picking a fight with the
bishops over the scheme to export asylum seekers to Rwanda and another one with
Europe over the Northern Ireland protocol. Rather than do anything to resolve
the rail strikes, he sought to exploit them to wound Labour. None of that could
save the Tories in either Devon or Yorkshire. If he ever was an electoral
magician, he now looks like a wizard with a broken wand.
Two things
are keeping him in office for the moment. A feeble cabinet is too pusillanimous
to move against a deeply discredited and wildly unpopular prime minister. That
feeds the other factor, which is the continuing doubt among Conservative MPs
that there is anyone among them who would be a more credible and electable
leader than a law-breaking liar. Tories look upon Boris Johnson and despair.
Then they consider his potential successors and despair again. That is another
reason for them to panic.
Andrew Rawnsley is Chief Political Commentator
of the Observer
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