Below the Radar. What the election campaign was revealing before it was so brutally interrupted

The appalling atrocity at the Manchester Arena has not only rightly caused a suspension of the campaign but it may well have an impact on the tone for the remainder of it. It is unlikely to have an effect on the ultimate result but it will force a fundamental reassessment of security measures and policy once Parliament returns and conventional public administration is restored. It has been a truly shocking reminder that what had been witnessed in so many continental European countries in the past two years or so is equally capable of occurring in the United Kingdom. Terror knows no borders.
In the days before the explosion in Manchester took place, the election appeared to take on a rather different character. The Conservatives had been thrown onto the defensive after being obliged to redefine a flagship manifesto stance on social care within days of it being revealed to the public. The sensitivity of this issue is such that even voters who could not actually identify any of the specifics of the proposal were, nevertheless, expressing their discomfort with it.
That a nearly instant pivot in position was deemed necessary to soothe such sentiments has some difficult long-term implications. If the taxpayer is to assume an ever larger share of the costs of an ageing society then demography would suggest that the price of this will come either at the expense of spending on the young, or a failure to invest in infrastructure, or a very different sort of tax base. The prominence of this question in 2017 may be a dry run for future elections in which social care almost always assumes centre stage in such contests.
In the short-term, the Conservative contortions over how to fund this area proved to be a relief for the Labour Party. The opinion polls have narrowed to a 12-14 point lead for the Government, although this has mostly been the result not of a notable drop in support for Theresa May and her allies (her share of the vote looks extremely solid) but of the ‘not-Tory’ constituency, for now at least, rallying back to the Labour Party, despite whatever doubts it might have about its leader and the plausibility of its prospectus. To that limited extent – and perhaps more by accident than design – the Jeremy Corbyn camp could, until late Monday and events in Manchester, claim to be winning the campaign.
What, though, are we learning about the politics of the UK after the election through this election?
The Brexit factor is currently only cutting one way
This was billed in advance as the Brexit election and to some extent this is an accurate description. It is only a valid one, however, on one side of the argument. For those who backed Leave in June 2016, the referendum has had a substantial impact on their subsequent electoral alignment. A very large majority of those who want to exit the European Union will back the Conservatives on polling day.
The best survey data available suggests that in the referendum last year, 58% of those who had embraced the Conservatives in 2015 voted to leave the EU, while 42% chose to heed the advice of David Cameron and stick with the status quo. The current polling implies the Conservatives hold around 43-44% of the national vote (up from 37% in May 2015) but that the profile of those voters has changed substantially.
At least two-thirds of the May 2017 Conservative constituency consists of those who favoured withdrawal from the EU 11 months ago. If the Conservatives can edge back up to the 46-48% range, which they were reaching regularly before they became ensnared in the social care controversy, then the proportion in their ranks who wanted to quit the EU would start to hit 70%. The strengthening of the Leave lobby within the core of the Conservative electorate is bound to have some effect on the decisions of the Government as to how to approach the negotiations to leave once the hustings are over and talking starts in earnest.
On the Remain side, by contrast, fragmentation and resignation appears to be the order of the day. Labour decided early on that it would prefer not to focus on Brexit but place its emphasis on social issues and economic distress instead. The Liberal Democrats decided to fill what they perceived to be the void and put at the heart of their programme opposition to withdrawal from the EU and championing a second referendum before any departure could take place.
On the evidence to date, Labour has made the right call. The most significant movement in the polls during this month has been some churn to Labour from the Liberal Democrats. This is the opposite of what many, and this included the Liberal Democrat leadership itself, had expected. It was widely assumed there that the combined impact of the Corbyn factor plus wrapping themselves in the pro-EU cause would see the Liberal Democrats race their way towards 15-20% of the national vote by now, not finding their score mired at 5%-10%. The hard truth appears to be that there are simply not enough single issue anti-Brexit voters out there to mobilise in to a sizeable bloc. The Remain cause is, today, marooned.
Someone senior in the Conservative Party seems to think a recession is coming
The most under-considered element of the domestic policy side of the election is the section in the Conservative manifesto relating to the elimination of the budget deficit. A mere two years ago in May 2015 this ‘long-term economic plan’ was at the absolute heart of the Conservative campaign, even if the then Chancellor had badly missed his original target of a balanced budget by the end of that Parliament. In less than a year, the date for fiscal balance has moved from 2020 to 2022 and now to 2025 and this wording does not offer the sense that this is an absolutely primary priority.
At one level, this now very, very long-term economic plan does not seem especially logical. After all, in cash terms the deficit has already been reduced by two-thirds over the past seven years and as a percentage of GDP it has fallen by almost three-quarters in that period. The latest predictions from the Office of Budget Responsibility are admittedly a little soft (around 1.5% growth) for 2018 and 2019 but then return to a steady 2% thereafter. Why, then, eight more years to wipe out the deficit?
The only rational explanation is that someone, somewhere within the Conservative Party (Downing Street or HM Treasury) does not believe the OBR forecasts. They are allowing for a much sharper slowdown in the economy, possibly an outright recession, which would push the deficit numbers up again at some point in the 2017-2021 period before those figures eased downwards before 2025.
Whether this (unstated) assessment proves to be correct and exactly when it happens would have an important, if at this stage unpredictable, effect on the character of the Brexit bargaining, the overall condition of British politics and the date of the next general election (in another under-noted element of Mrs May’ manifesto she has pledged to repeal the Fixed-Term Parliament Act if elected).
The Conservatives and the SNP may swap positions on a second independence referendum
The SNP hoped that it could turn this election campaign into a de facto referendum on whether or not to hold a second independence referendum. This is turning into classic ‘be careful what you wish for’ territory. The campaign north of the border has indeed concentrated on the referendum question above all else but not quite in the manner that the First Minister had anticipated. There is no evidence (yet) of an appetite for reversing the 2014 referendum result, but the consequence of raising the issue has been to drive a large chunk of those who oppose another ballot on the matter into the arms of the Scottish Conservative Party and so complete the rout of Scottish Labour. If this continues, then we could reach the ironic outcome once the Brexit process is complete where it is in the interests of the Conservatives to hold a second referendum on independence to kill that cause off while the SNP might be searching for a reason for that plebiscite to be deferred to a later day.
Tim Hames
Director General, BVCA