POLITICS | JAMES FORSYTH
ly than his original one. Within the shadow
cabinet, he is trying to freeze out the deputy
leader Tom Watson, the only other person
in the Parliamentary Labour Party with a
direct mandate from the membership. I am
told that Watson has been kept off the key
shadow cabinet policymaking committees.
In fairness, Corbyn is getting slightly
better at leading the opposition. His per-
formances on TV and in the Commons
chamber are improving, even if his choice of
subject at PMQs can still be baffling. Last
week, he went with mental health rather
than either the cabinet divisions over Brex-
it or the question of what May knew about
the problems at the child abuse inquiry. But
these baby steps will count for little in ageneral election campaign where Corbyn’s
hard-left views will receive proper public
attention for the first time. It won’t just be
his views on the economy and immigration
that will cause him trouble, though. His atti-
tude to the IRA, Hamas and Hezbollah will
stick in the craw of most voters.
But it isn’t just Labour who are failing
to be a proper opposition — Ukip are, too.
Since the referendum, Ukip has been in dis-
array. Its summer leadership contest was a
farce, with the two most credible candidates
barred from standing for procedural reasons
and the reluctant winner quitting after only18 days. But the farce then turned violent as
a meeting of Ukip MEPs ended up with the
leadership frontrunner Steven Woolfe in a
hospital bed for several days after a fight.
Woolfe has now quit the party, saying it is in
a ‘death spiral’.
Part of Ukip’s problem is financial. The
party is so hard up, that — I understand — it
is reluctant to pay an outside body to count
the votes in the coming leadership election,
so will do it in-house: a recipe for disaster in
a party where the factions trust each other
so little.
Another money problem for Ukip is
Arron Banks, one of its leading donors. He
has gained huge influence over the party in
the last few years: a reminder that one of the
problems with British politics and money is
how quickly influence can be secured. He is
a self-styled bad boy of Brexit who is deter-
mined not to abide by Westminster rules.
In this contest, he has thrown his weight
behind Raheem Kassam, who used to work
for Nigel Farage. Kassam, who would be the
youngest and least experienced party leader
in living memory, seems to regard Donald
Trump as a model to emulate: his slogan is
‘Make Ukip great again’.
Inside the party, a win for the former
deputy leader Paul Nuttall is regarded as
the most likely result. Nuttall is a competent
politician, and would be well suited to taking
on Labour in the north — he is an MEP for
the North West. But he won’t set the heath-
er alight or cause Theresa May any sleepless
nights. As for the Liberal Democrats, they
clearly regard their electoral route back as
turning themselves into the Ukip of Remain
— a party that appeals to a certain slice of
the electorate which regards the EU mem-
bership as an identity issue. This might win
them some seats, but it is not a national
strategy.
The absence of opposition to May will
mean that some Tories are prepared to be
more critical of the government than they
normally would be. This will create occasion-
al bouts of political turbulence, but won’t
threaten May’s position; there is a huge dif-
ference between criticising the Prime Minis-
ter and calling for a leadership election.
Politics abhors a vacuum, but it is hard to
see a proper opposition to the Tories emerg-
ing before the next election.SPECTATOR.CO.UK/EVENINGBLEND
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ppositions don’t win elections —
governments lose them. This has
long been the Westminster wis-
dom. But the truth is that oppositions can
lose elections, too: they must pass a basic
competency test to be considered for office.
Today, however, no party resembles a cred-
ible opposition to the Tories, let alone a gov-
ernment in waiting.
What makes this absence so striking is
that the government is in such a perilous
position. It must somehow implement Brex-
it. Leaving the EU will crowd out Theresa
May’s domestic priorities and reveal all the
divisions in the Tory party over what kind of
relationship with the EU the UK should seek.
As one Tory with good links to No. 10 puts it,
‘People regard this as existential to the coun-
try and so they will behave in a principled
manner, and won’t be whipped as easily.’
The short-term economic fallout from
Britain leaving the EU won’t be simple for
the government to deal with, either. If the
fall in the pound leads to inflation of 4 to
5 per cent, then Britain will be back in a
cost of living crisis — with prices rising fast-
er than wages — of the sort that caused so
much political difficulty to the coalition gov-
ernment in 2011 and 2012.
Timing is an issue, too. May has ruled out
an early election, saying that the country
needs a period of stability between now and
2020 to make progress. Going to the country
before then would undermine her reputa-
tion for getting on with the job. But 2020 is a
tight timeframe by which to achieve Brexit.
May has said she will invoke the two-year
process for leaving the EU before the end
of March next year. But she has admitted
that the process of leaving might take long-
er than that. Even if it is all done by 2019, the
history of government IT systems doesn’t
suggest that a new work-permit-based immi-
gration system would be operating success-
fully by the time of the next election.
Nevertheless, the assumption at West-
minster is that 2020 is a slam dunk for the
Tories, the main question being: by how
much can Theresa May increase her majori-
ty? That’s because the opposition is so weak.
Jeremy Corbyn is more secure as Labour
leader than he has ever been. His re-election
with an increased majority has cemented his
position. It is now hard to see how he can
be removed before 2020. He has managed
to put together a shadow cabinet and front
bench team that is far closer to him political-
The absent opposition
Politics abhors a vacuum, but it’s
hard to see a proper opposition
em erg ing before th e n ext el ect ion