Conservatives are drawing the wrong lesson from Europe’s polls - Financial Times

British Conservatives are about to get a vision of their future. As the results of the European parliamentary elections come in, they will stand, like Scrooge, beside the ghost of Christmas yet to come, and see their party split and humiliated. From this they will draw the only message they are willing to hear: that there is only room for one Brexit party, and that if it is not them, they are doomed.

This is, it must be said, a twist on Charles Dickens’ redemptive novel. Instead of seeing the folly of their ways and rushing back to the political centre, the Tories will double down and proclaim themselves the only true “bah humbug” party.

There is some logic to this stance. If politics is polarising, there is a case for choosing a pole. Since 2017, the Conservatives’ strategy has been to be the Brexit party, the one current stance that commands any significant support. But they have loused it up, allowing the re-emergence of Nigel Farage, whose new Brexit party is set to humble the Tories in May’s European elections — this week’s local elections are merely the appetiser.

A still small voice, perhaps the ghost of, “Have we been watching the same movie?”, might suggest that the fault lies with those same Tories (including many would-be leaders) who doomed Theresa May’s Brexit deal, denounced the prime minister as a “traitor” and proclaimed that the Conservatives have betrayed Brexit.

For Brexit is no longer a policy. It is a religion and selection is by faith alone. There is only purity and heresy. The lesson that Conservatives are going to draw from the anticipated wipeout is that they need to get back to church. This conclusion will be fortified by the imminent leadership contest in which anything other that Brexit purity is deemed to be a non-starter. Although all the contenders will try to show they are about more than Brexit, positing exciting visions for unifying Britain, none of it matters. They will be committed to miring the UK in a no-deal Brexit and its ramifications.

The notion that anyone can deliver a pure Brexit and then move on to other matters is a fantasy. In any case, they lack the numbers in parliament to deliver it without an early election of which they should be very nervous. They will be pure but impotent, a good look for eunuchs.

The better conclusion to draw from the elections is that voters prefer political parties to stage their civil wars in opposition and expect a government to be able to govern. As previous Tory leaders have found, one can never be pure enough for fanatics. So wise Conservatives would see the likely results as a warning of where the party could be heading and why they must broaden their appeal. The Brexit party may secure 25 to 30 per cent in the polls, but that is not enough to win a general election.

The Tories need to pass a Brexit deal, hail it heartily and start applauding Mrs May into the sunset. Brexit’s next stage will still dominate public policy but the government might be able to function. Their new leader should be chosen not for a Pharisaic devotion to Brexit, but for offering a plan to win back younger voters by addressing the concerns that turned them off the Tories in the first place.

These voters want an economy that is not in crisis and convincing arguments on improving public services, increasing housebuilding, tackling knife crime and all the other issues that are actually worrying people. Success would mean engaging with the electorate as it is, rather than as they wish it would be.

But the Conservatives are not going to reach the smart conclusion. Too many have an incentive to herald the elections as proof of the cost of not keeping faith with their post hoc definition of Brexit. They will chase Mr Farage back to the 1950s to shore up their base, wrap themselves in the flag and hope it is enough to keep out Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn.

In the very short term, this strategy may stop a split which, if you are a Tory, is not nothing. Perhaps it will be enough to keep Labour out (though I would not bet on it). But it will quite quickly turn the Tories into an English nationalist rump and intrude on their core beliefs. As they look for support among the old and disaffected, they will find their low-tax instincts conflict with the need to spend more on the public services on which those groups rely.

Perhaps this will all be the catalyst for the emergence of a significant new centre force. Until then, British voters will find they have a choice between two cultish dogmas, nationalism and socialism. It is not a vision of the future anyone should rush to embrace.

robert.shrimsley@ft.com

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