A bruising campaign limps to the finish

Sophie Gaston, head of international projects and external affairs at the thnik tank Demos, provides the Montaigne Institute with her analysis of the 2017 British General Election.

Even aside from the harrowing terror attacks that have taken place over the past weeks, it is unlikely that the 2017 British General Election campaign will be remembered fondly by any of its participants. A snap election, breaking the set parliamentary term, it was called by the Prime Minister against her cautious instincts after opinion polling suggested her lead over the opposition leader, Jeremy Corbyn of the Labour Party, had reached unprecedented levels. As we arrive at polling day, however, Prime Minister May will undoubtedly feel that there may have been some wisdom in trusting her gut.

While the Conservative Party is tipped to command a significant parliamentary majority, the campaign has been bruising to all involved. Despite expectations that the vote, held almost exactly a year following the shock result of the European Referendum, would focus on the pressing issue of Brexit, the tremendous disparity in the polling ratings between May and Corbyn meant the campaign began – and will end – on the issue of leadership.

In the early weeks, this appeared to play straight into the hand of the Prime Minister, whose name was emblazoned across campaign buses, leaflets and merchandise – with the party name, perennially toxic for some Britons, nowhere to be seen. The Conservatives sought to capitalise on May’s popularity and build a cult of personality around their leader, emphasising the security she offered a divided nation on the edge of a momentous, historical period of uncertainty. Candidates were sold as members of "Theresa May’s Team", and ambitions began to reach towards a historic victory of epic proportions – with talk of "painting the North (the traditional heartlands of the Labour Party) blue".

But not everything went according to plan, as the Conservatives’ seemingly unassailable campaign momentum was disrupted by the publication of the party manifestos. The strategic leak of the Labour Party’s manifesto was immediately viewed in the Westminster bubble as a disaster for the party – but its hard-left push to renationalise public services and promise of investment in health and education proved surprisingly popular. Suddenly, the Labour Party, previously crippled on the campaign doorstep by Jeremy Corbyn – whose cult following bore no reflection of his acute unpopularity with the broader election – was able to draw the agenda towards domestic policy.

When the Conservatives published their own manifesto the following week, a controversial plan from May’s staff to release the equity in people’s homes to pay for their social care sparked uproar, as fearful citizens interpreted the policy as a government grab on their homes. Under pressure from her campaign chief, the Prime Minister clumsily faced the media to announce a u-turn on the policy, but the damage was done – her message of providing "strong and stable" leadership had been catastrophically shaken. It was in the evening of Prime Minister May’s worst campaign day that the horrific terror attack in Manchester took place.

When the campaigning resumed, recognising the risk they had exposed themselves to by focusing so heavily on their singular leader, the Conservatives appeared with a rebranded message around the party. While the media continues to report a "Labour surge" off the back of the social care hiccup, all the reports from candidates from both parties on the campaign trail suggests that the Prime Minister is back on course for a comfortable victory. What will be less comfortable will be the relations between her highly centralised office and the wider party as they seek to move forward from an "unloseable" campaign that has at times felt in genuine jeopardy.

The result of the election will be important for both Britain’s domestic policy and the Brexit negotiations that will dominate all government resources for the coming years. The size of the Prime Minister’s mandate will strengthen her hand to see down both the right and the centre of her party, with whom she holds ideological differences in varying measures across both policy areas. So too will a strong mandate increase her confidence entering the Brexit discussions, which commence a mere 10 days following the vote. The Prime Minister knows that seeing these negotiations through successfully will necessitate a strong command of authority to have the difficult conversations she will face not just with Brussels, but also with the British people, and her own party, as the trade-offs for the country become clear.

For the Labour Party, the result will also be crucial. As with the Parti Socialiste and many other social democrat parties across Europe, Labour has struggled in recent years to reconcile the increasing gulf of values between its traditional working class and cosmopolitan constituencies. The election of Jeremy Corbyn as its leader, a politician more interested in building a ‘social movement’ than in governing, has proved a significant obstacle in the party’s regeneration and its ability to function effectively as Her Majesty’s Opposition at one of the most crucial junctions in British history. A woeful performance on Thursday will hurt in the short-term, but could at least provide the decisive electoral proof needed for the ‘moderate’ parliamentary members to challenge Corbyn’s leadership.

One fascinating aspect of this election is that it appears to mark the conclusion of a rather unusual period of plurality in the British electoral system, with the rise of the pro-European Liberal Democrats and the anti-European United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP). The modus operandi of both of these parties has been Brexit, and curiously, it will result in their shared collapse – though UKIP’s has a silver lining, having achieved its core objective. As the influence of these parties wains, and the Labour Party staggers under Corbyn, the end result may well be a one-party state.