Filling the Vacuum: If Labour cannot oppose effectively, five other sources will seek to do so

If at this point last year any sort of commentator had predicted that, following defeat in the EU referendum, a stand-in Conservative Prime Minister and Government would be on the verge of triggering Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty 12 months later and be almost 20 percentage points ahead in the opinion polls, such a figure would have been deemed fit for sectioning. Yet that is precisely where we stand in late March 2017.
Theresa May’s advantage over Jeremy Corbyn as to who would make the best Prime Minister is enormous and the Conservative lead over Labour is huge. The political system is so biased in party terms at the moment that Downing Street felt compelled to slap down speculation about an early general election even though calling one is now much harder than before.
What is even more astonishing is that there are sound reasons for concluding that the Conservative advantage could become even larger. The first is that despite the pantomime that has been multiple UKIP leadership elections and the apparent elevation of a Walter Mitty protégé to its leadership, the party still remains at about 10% in most opinion surveys. Were that figure to erode as the party formerly led by Nigel Farage (several times) completely imploded, most of what deserted the sinking ship would probably turn next to the Conservatives with Mrs May at the helm.
The second is that the public is, as a whole, more cautious and less optimistic about the economy than either the Bank of England or the Office of Budget Responsibility, so if on this occasion the experts turn out to be right then ministers can hope to reap some reward, while if matters on the economy transpire to be less encouraging they will at least not have run against voter expectations. Finally, the already absolutely dire state of the Labour Party could easily become a lot worse before it ever gets better.
This last point is worth further elaboration. There are essentially four factions now within the Labour Party in the House of Commons. The first are those who truly believe in Mr Corbyn personally and truly believe in his political agenda and are willing to serve to assist his cause. A maximum of five Labour MPs could pass a lie detector test on this account. The number could be as low as nil.
The second camp accepts that Mr Corbyn is doomed to defeat but puts that down to him personally and believes the party should occupy his part of the political spectrum and so they are content to be in the Shadow team regardless of their private thoughts about the leader. At most 20 MPs fit in this section.
Next there are those MPs who neither have any faith in Mr Corbyn nor his philosophy and project but are prepared to be on the frontbench either out of a sense of duty or for a quiet life with their constituency activists, many of whom are recent recruits controlled by Momentum. There are around 50-60 in this category.
Finally, there are those who think their leader is a total waste of space and that his outlook on life is close to deranged and who would rather serve in a chicken plucking factory than be associated with him personally, his Shadow team or his manifesto when it emerges. At least 150 Labour MPs are of this view and they disproportionately represent the talent in the PLP.
This is obviously some way short of an optimal situation. It means a bruising confrontation at party conference in September when the hard Left attempts to lower the number of MPs required to nominate a candidate in any future leadership election from 15% to 5%, while the PLP plus some of the trade unions aim to reintroduce a form of electoral college to dilute the influence of their membership.
Both of these initiatives will probably fail which means by late 2018, once the boundary changes to parliamentary seats have to be implemented, there will be an absolute bloodbath over re-selection. This will be far worse than anything that the Labour Party has experienced since May 2015 (as tough to imagine as this may seem) and will inevitably further weaken it as a force and as an Opposition.
Nature, though, abhors a vacuum. The dynamics of the British political system demand that there is some form of resistance to Mrs May. There are, hence, essentially five vehicles for opposition to her.
The Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords
If the SNP, not Labour despite their much greater numerical weight, are set to be the real opposition in the House of Commons, then it is the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords who will cheerfully attempt to be the biggest troublemakers that they can be allowing for the limited authority of peers. Just as it was the Liberal Democrats who fought to the last on the Brexit vote, so it will be the case on a host of other subjects as Lord Newby, their wily leader, reaches out to dispirited Labour lords, to the crossbenchers and some alienated old-school Conservatives in the Upper House and offers up some leadership on controversial domestic questions. This could be the cause of real inconvenience.
Discontented Cameroons
There are a lot of former close supporters of David Cameron and George Osborne who were sacked last summer and are sitting restless on the Conservative benches (even if Mr Cameron has departed and Mr Osborne has far too many roles to spend much time in Parliament). Those who were in the Remain lobby, in particular, have every reason to ration their loyalty carefully. Nicky Morgan, the former Education Secretary, and Anna Soubry, the ex-Business Minister, have already nailed their colours to the mast in opposition to the reintroduction of grammar schools. There will be others.
Elected mayors
Sadiq Khan, the pragmatic and shrewd Mayor of London, is already showing signs of being willing to forge an alliance with the banking community to defend London’s financial interests on Brexit. He may end up being the de facto Leader of the Opposition on the terms of withdrawal. As of 4 May there will also be elected mayors with significant clout in Greater Manchester, the West Midlands, Liverpool City, Sheffield City, Tees Valley and the West of England (the Bristol area). In most of these places, the Remain campaign did better than the country as a whole. They will become spiky actors.
The media
Finally, and perhaps the most dangerous of all for the Prime Minister, there is the media. The saga of the U-turn over the self-employed and national insurance contributions started with the Political Editor of the BBC noticing a potential tension between the policy shift and the 2015 Manifesto, and took fire when both The Sun and The Daily Mail decided to turn on the Chancellor over his decision. This axis could be repeated in spades if the media deems that the Labour Party is functionally dead as an opposition and that democracy therefore demands that someone else takes on that function.
None of this may have any impact on Mrs May’s poll advantage. It will make her life more awkward.
Tim Hames
Director General, BVCA