The writer’s new book is ‘The Conservative Party After Brexit’
Rishi Sunak is on a roll. If you believe Conservative spin-doctors, the prime minister is stopping small boats crossing the channel, he’s saved a bank and its customers from going under, and he’s helped shape a relatively well-received Budget — one that should allow him to spend just before the general election he has to call sometime next year.
Above all, he’s proved that pragmatism can solve even the thorniest of legacy problems, getting his Northern Ireland Brexit fix through the Commons with only a small rebellion from a dwindling band of Brexiter malcontents and disgruntled former leaders, including Boris Johnson.
At least some of these claims are credible, and have led to a significant uptick in Sunak’s personal poll ratings, up 5 per cent on last month. But it’s far from uncomplicated good news for his party — Sunak’s successes have not so far triggered an increase in support for the Conservatives, still lagging behind Labour by about 15 to 20 per cent.
His MPs shouldn’t abandon all hope of a halo effect. If voters admire a leader while harbouring reservations about their party, an election campaign that puts said leader front and centre can potentially swing things even a beleaguered government’s way.
No surprise, then, that this is the strategy many analysts expect the current government to follow — a markedly unpopular Tory party hiding behind the skirts of a sympathetic and popular Sunak. But while it may be the best option available, recent precedents are not particularly encouraging: leaders aren’t the be-all and end-all in winning elections.
To hear his most ardent admirers, Boris Johnson almost single-handedly won the 2019 election for the Tories. Yet detailed polling during the campaign suggests that that victory owed far more to the slogan “Get Brexit Done”, plus widespread antipathy to then Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, than to Johnson’s personal appeal. Indeed, Johnson was actually less popular with voters by election day than both Corbyn and Theresa May had been in 2017.
The May campaign offers the direst of warnings to Tories who think the electorate’s misgivings about the party can be assuaged by focusing on the leader. I have discovered that polling research designed to test whether calling an election that year was a smart move was far from positive. The resulting recommendation for a campaign built around the supposedly “strong and stable” May was made by strategists who had no idea what a poor communicator she was — then seized on nevertheless by insiders who did, but hoped it wouldn’t matter.
That wasn’t, of course, the only reason things went catastrophically wrong. The absence of a clear command structure, an undercooked media strategy, and an overambitious manifesto and seat-targeting operation also played their part. So, too, did the failure to persuade voters — most famously, Brenda from Bristol whose views went viral — that another general election needed to be held just two years after the last one.
None of those mistakes was repeated in 2019: Isaac Levido was firmly in charge of strategy, the Tory manifesto was deliberately dull and effectively bombproof, its media operation well organised and its targeting far more realistic. Since Levido will be running the Conservative campaign next year, too, we’re unlikely to see the dysfunction and division of 2017.
But perhaps the most important difference between 2017, 2019 and 2024 will be that, in Sunak, the Tories have a leader who might turn out to be better respected than Johnson and better able to front a presidential-style campaign than May — in an election that is due, not chosen for party advantage.
Whether, though, after more than a decade in power and with arguably precious little to show for all those changes of leader, that will be enough to save the Conservatives remains to be seen.
