This will be a week Rishi Sunak would rather forget. His efforts to present himself as a sober alternative to a party-prone prime minister were dealt a bodyblow by a spring statement that was panned across the political spectrum as an inadequate response to voters’ concerns on spiralling bills and the largest decline in living standards since rationing was abolished in the 1950s.
Sunak’s failure brings broader risks. Growing public disquiet over the cost of living crisis has begun to tarnish a cherished core element of the Tory political brand: economic competence. For most of the past decade, voters have shown a strong preference for the Tores as stewards of the economy. That advantage is fading fast. One recent poll showed voters giving Labour’s economic team of Starmer and Reeves a lead over their Conservative rivals, something not seen since before the financial crisis. Polling on the cost of living is even worse for the Conservatives – Labour have solid and growing leads on this issue, which looks set to remain the focus of attention for many months.
Days before the chancellor took to the despatch box, his colleagues began, at the party’s spring conference, to set out their plans for the coming general election. The world may have changed but the political battle lines drawn up in Blackpool had not: traditional values v metropolitan liberal elites, Conservative pragmatism v Labour extremism, common sense v “cancel culture”. Underpinning it was the most familiar faultline – Leave v Remain.
The political logic of trying to shift the focus away from the economy and back towards the identity and value conflicts which divide Leave and Remain voters is obvious. The Conservatives’ “Get Brexit Done” win in 2019 was driven by overwhelming support from Brexiters, 75% of whom backed the party. The “red wall” seats where once impregnable Labour majorities were overcome are socially conservative, strongly Leave-voting places. The current Conservative electoral coalition is divided over economics, but united on identity politics.
The audience for Brexit rallying cries is still impressive – more than six in 10 voters continue to identify with Leave or Remain, far more than call themselves Tory or Labour. These still widely-felt Brexit tribal attachments are potent political resources for any who can activate them. However, they are beginning to fade, and Leave identities are declining faster than Remain attachments. The tribal pull of Brexit helped Johnson bring in support from voters otherwise suspicious of the Conservative party. That pull may now be weakening. Recent events have also shaken the Conservatives’ hold over Leavers. The “partygate” scandal triggered a slump in support for Johnson among his core Brexiter electorate.
The prime minister’s net approve-disapprove ratings among Leavers in Opinium polls for the Observer crashed from a peak of +43 as vaccines were rolled out last spring to a trough of -15 in December. Johnson’s winter fall among Leavers was much steeper than among Remainers, taking him into negative territory with Brexit supporters for the first time as prime minister.
A similar, but more modest, Brexiter shift is also evident in vote preferences: the Conservatives have declined more than 10 points with Leavers since last summer. Having held steady at about 70% for most of the parliament, Tory support from Brexit backers has now fallen below 60%.
The Conservatives would dearly love to restore the Brexit coalition by refighting the party battles of the last two parliaments, when they painted the Labour party of Jeremy Corbyn as an extreme, unpatriotic threat to national security.
Under Keir Starmer, Labour have been determined to deny them this opportunity. The Labour leader’s embrace of socially conservative positions on culture, identity and patriotism has been the subject of some derision on the left of his party, but it has an obvious political logic of its own. Starmer has had to earn a hearing for Labour with Leave voters, whose hostility to Corbyn was total.
There are signs in the polling that these efforts to reconnect with Leave voters are beginning to bear fruit. Though Starmer remains unpopular with Brexiters, his current approvals are the best seen since last year’s vaccine rollout began, and Labour’s current 20% plus polling among Leavers is the best since the 2019 election.
While Brexiter enthusiasm for Labour is muted, Starmer’s current position is nonetheless a massive improvement on his predecessor. Labour know that even a modest recovery with Leave voters is enough to tip the balance in many seats. The appeal of a campaign selling the benefits delivered by Brexit, and attacking its critics, is thus obvious: the Conservatives will hope to restore their fortunes by stoking the fading fires of Brexit partisanship and rallying wavering Leavers back to their banner.
This strategy requires an electorate willing to dance once again to the beat of a Brexit drum. That is by no means certain. Attention to Brexit is now lower than at any time since before the referendum vote, and attention to immigration at its lowest for over two decades. With economic chaos at home, conflict abroad and record levels of anxiety about climate change, the issue agenda today is radically different to the terrain on which the previous elections were fought and won.
The Tories may want to shift the conversation back to more favourable terrain. The risk is that they cannot do so, and are left with nothing to say.
Robert Ford is professor of political science at Manchester University
