06 Jun 2018

Still Standing. The five factors that explain Theresa May’s survival after her election debacle

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Almost 35 years ago exactly, Elton John released the single I’m Still Standing. He probably did not suspect that more than three decades on, he would be about to embark on a three-year ‘farewell tour’ which will doubtless draw hundreds of thousands of people to venues across the planet.

I’m Still Standing could also serve as Theresa’s May’s personal anthem. On Friday, it will be the first anniversary of that general election and that exit poll which foretold a result which virtually no one would have anticipated when she had called that election three years earlier than necessary. In the aftermath of what occurred on 8 June 2017, not many would have believed that she had more than a few months left in 10 Downing Street. George Osborne, the former Chancellor who she had sacked as almost her first act upon becoming the First Lord of the Treasury, gleefully declared her to be a ‘dead woman walking’. If so, it would appear that political zombies have unexpected resilience.

Why has the Prime Minister been able to endure for the past 12 months and how much longer could she be expected to remain in office? That depends on the five fundamental factors that have explained her survival after the election debacle so far and whether or not they remain relevant.

The Prime Minister has reinvented herself as the indispensable arbiter between party factions

It is a paradox that arguably the most presidential election campaign in British political history has produced a Prime Minister obliged to return to the convention of Cabinet government. Mrs May would not still be where she is if she had not adapted her leadership style radically. In her first year as Prime Minister she was an omnipresent figure. Her chief aides – Nick Timothy (especially) and Fiona Hill – acted as instruments of her will with little care for whom that upset within Whitehall. Other, even distinctly senior, figures in the Cabinet were often marginalised. If she had won the election with the massive margin that was presumed (at one stage her in-house analysts were predicting a majority of 270 seats) then she would surely have continued to rule in this manner.

May 2.0 is a very different figure. She has reinvented herself as the arbiter between competing Cabinet and party factions, notably but not exclusively on Brexit. She has had to tolerate a degree of dissent from others around the top table that would not normally be acceptable. She has recast herself as the only individual who can find a compromise between competing interests. That is precisely what she is seeking to do right now over the ‘backstop’ option in the legal text of the Withdrawal Agreement with the European Union which refers to the vexed issue of the Irish border. If she can find an outcome that holds the Cabinet and her party together, and which proves to be tolerable to Dublin and the European Commission, then she will have bought herself a lot more time.

Her personal poll ratings have held up

A striking feature of the last four weeks of the 2017 election campaign was the catastrophic slide in Mrs May’s personal poll standing. Her enormous advantage on the question of ‘Best Prime Minister’ eroded away to almost nothing in a breathtakingly short period of time. If that process had carried on in the weeks and months after the result was known, then her authority would have been swept away with it. She would probably have been out not long after the Conservative Party conference.

As matters have developed, however, her ratings have not only stabilised but strengthened a little. The question of ‘Best Prime Minister’ is today a two-horse race between Mrs May and ‘Don’t Know’, with Jeremy Corbyn coming in third with a showing that is much weaker than his party’s overall standing with the electorate. She is a (modest) asset to her party at the moment, whereas he has returned to being a liability to his. While this remains the case, she would be hard to force out.

A direct challenge to her would be a high risk exercise for disenchanted Conservative MPs

At one level, a challenge to Mrs May’s leadership, particularly if it were on the substance of Brexit, is a straightforward exercise to execute. All it requires is 15% of the parliamentary party (or 48 MPs on current numbers) to write to the Chairman of the 1922 Committee (Graham Brady MP) to demand a vote of confidence. What is more, those MPs can do so under the cover of anonymity. To that extent then, throwing down the gauntlet to the Prime Minister could be done in a few hours.

The risks involved in such an approach are, though, considerable. The ‘hard Brexit’ contingent in the Conservative Party could manifestly mobilise the numbers required, while the “ultra-soft Brexit” camp equally clearly does not have the troops to do so. The bulk of Conservative MPs sit between these polarised positions. It would not be their natural instinct to change leader at this stage. So a political assassination could be attempted but with the real risk of failure.

What is worse still for those who might like to see a different leader is that the rules of the Conservative Party are such that if a leader faces a vote of confidence and wins it, no new vote can be held for 12 months. This is a very strong incentive to hold back unless the rebels are absolutely certain of victory. If not, then it is far worse in politics to shoot to kill and to miss then not to have pulled the trigger at all.

There is no obvious, never mind a consensus, successor to her as Prime Minister out there

It is hard to beat something with nothing. We are a year on from the election and if anything the search for an obvious, never mind consensus, figure who could replace Mrs May, either in the short-term or for the longer-term, has become more, not less, incredible.

Last summer, it was conceivable that should he have indicated that he would serve for two to three years, David Davis, the Brexit Secretary, could have emerged as a compromise candidate to replace Mrs May as Prime Minister. He did not make such a move and 12 months later is a less plausible alternative were he to change his mind.

A number of other possibilities, notably Sir Michael Fallon, Damian Green and Amber Rudd, have been compelled to depart from the Cabinet and have been removed from contention as a consequence. Philip Hammond was always an improbable long-shot and has become an even longer one.

Mrs May is strengthened by the fact that the ‘hard Brexit’ fraternity has too many potential candidates (Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Andrea Leadsom, Dominic Rabb), while the ‘soft Brexit’ lobby has no one left to run. Those in the middle have no figure of sufficient political status or any popularity yet, although in time the likes of Sajid Javid, the Home Secretary, or Damian Hinds, the Education Secretary, could enter the frame. For the moment, no individual or section could be confident of emerging on top if Mrs May were somehow to be forced into resignation. While that remains valid, she will stay.

After the UK exits the EU, the politics of the Brexit process should become considerably easier

While the next few weeks and months until the terms of the Withdrawal Agreement are decided will have many hairy moments for the Prime Minister, once that deal is done, which will either be at the EU Council in October or December, then the politics of the Brexit process should become considerably easier for the Prime Minister, the Cabinet and indeed the country. That is because while there is still any remaining doubt about whether the UK might abandon Brexit or hold a second referendum on the actual terms of departure, then there is every logic in the European Commission playing hardball. Once the UK has formally exited the EU on 29 March 2019 that possibility will expire.

By that point too, control over the Brexit process on the EU-27 side will move, perhaps very swiftly, away from Brussels back to the nation states, most of whom have an interest in retaining a cordial future relationship with the United Kingdom. The great prize for Mrs May personally, therefore, is that if she can make it to 29 March 2019 then her chances of remaining as Prime Minister all the way until the very end of the transition period, 31 December 2020, at least should not be underestimated.

Tim Hames
Director General, BVCA


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