British politics is shrinking. Partly that is a trick of perspective as an election comes into view and the ruling party flinches from long-term challenges. A government wanting to stay in office will focus on sweetening the electorate, pushing bitter choices to the far side of polling day.
But Rishi Sunak’s policy cupboard is bare, the economy is stagnant and the cost of living crisis shows no sign of abating. Many voters have lost any appetite for Tory rule.
That is the evidence from two out of three byelections last week. Labour took Selby and Ainsty in North Yorkshire, and the Liberal Democrats won Somerton and Frome in Somerset, overturning majorities of 20,137 and 19,213 respectively. In both seats, voters coalesced around whichever opposition candidate was best placed to thrash the local Tory. That suggests a collective turning of electoral stomachs against a noxious brand.
With time running out, Downing Street is increasingly reliant on its most dependable defensive technique – stirring fear that, no matter how bad things seem now, Labour can contrive to make them worse.
Conservative strategists think the viability of that device was proven in the third of last week’s byelection trio. There was still a big swing to the opposition in Uxbridge and South Ruislip, but it was checked by aversion to a Labour policy – a levy on polluting vehicles already established for inner London and due to be extended to the capital’s outer suburbs.
The ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) is municipal not national policy; conceived when Boris Johnson was mayor, extended by Sadiq Khan. It is not Keir Starmer’s choice. But that distinction doesn’t count for much in byelections, when a shrewd local campaign can rewrite the question on the ballot paper.
If Johnson had still been the local MP, it might have been a referendum on his probity, in which case Labour would probably have won. But Johnson’s resignation allowed the Tories to do some campaign jiu-jitsu, reversing the usual anti-incumbency effect, casting Labour, via Ulez, as the local party of power to be given a kicking.
That manoeuvre will be hard to pull off in a general election, when the bigger question of whether Britain wants a fifth term of Tory government will be unavoidable.
The wrong conclusion from Uxbridge would be that voters don’t like environmental policy and that Sunak should strip the greenery from his agenda. The Tory faction that wishes this were true is celebrating vindication despite evidence that voters of all ages and in all constituencies care about a range of ecological issues, from sewage in the sea to carbon in the atmosphere. (Besides, Labour fell short by fewer votes in Uxbridge than the number who backed the Greens and, presumably, back ultra-low emissions. Sunak got lucky.)
In Labour HQ, the Uxbridge result is deciphered as confirmation that the leader’s office must keep an iron grip on policy to avoid things flapping loose that could be seized and weaponised by Conservatives. As Starmer put it in a speech over the weekend: “We are doing something very wrong if policies put forward by the Labour party end up on each and every Tory leaflet.”
It is true the opposition should avoid gifting attack lines to the government. This is why the shadow cabinet is not allowed to make spending commitments without matching them to revenue-raising measures, and why Labour will not make a case for European integration if it sounds anything like open-door immigration.
It is a fine balancing act. Selby proves the merit in making Labour an unthreatening repository for anti-Tory votes. Uxbridge shows the downside to campaigning from a defensive crouch, which limits agility. It should not have been so hard to weave an anti-pollution argument around a call to stop the Tory rot: fresh start plus clean air.
Starmer’s tactical caution has worked so far, but it has also contributed to the miniaturisation of politics. There are things Sunak can’t talk about because his party’s record is so abysmal, and things Starmer won’t talk about for fear that stray pronouncements will be mangled, misrepresented and used against him. That doesn’t leave much space for meaningful debate.
The Labour leader’s supporters point out that he has so far shown an aptitude for strategic timing, steadily dragging his party from the bottom of an electoral abyss to within sight of governing heights. There will be a moment to reveal more of his hand but the pace won’t be dictated by the impatience of newspaper commentators or the frustration of leftwing activists.
The period between now and an election gives Starmer room to expand his pitch to voters. For Sunak it offers only a narrowing of options. Plan A was to look competent, managerial, the steady-handed former chancellor steering the ship of state out of turbulent waters. That hasn’t worked. Plan B is increasingly deranged attacks on Labour as allies of eco-fanaticism and, in the case of immigration policy, accomplices to the criminal gangs that smuggle migrants across the Channel.
The problem is that Sunak’s personal brand has already been shaped around plan A. The shiny image is now tarnished, but activating plan B will only contaminate it further with inauthenticity and the whiff of desperation. Aggressive polarisation only shrinks the audience by chasing away anyone attracted to moderation.
The prime minister’s better option, perhaps the only one, is not to obsess over the shrinking patch of ground at his feet but raise his eyes to a place beyond the election. He is still a young man. If he is ousted, he will still have a long professional life after Downing Street, in which case he may want to be remembered as the leader who pointed his party back towards sanity and drained some of the venom out of British politics. Aspiring to be that guy is also probably the likeliest way to earn back some respect from the electorate in advance of polling day. The best way to salvage some Tory credentials as a serious party of government may be to act as though the election is already lost.
But that approach takes courage. It means taking a view of politics as something bigger than it has become in Britain. Sunak’s way will make it even smaller.
Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnist
