Good morning, it’s George today. The European elections have temporarily overshadowed the UK campaign as the hard right surges in France and Italy. In response Emmanuel Macron has called an election in France. Below, Wolfgang Münchau explores whether his gamble will pay off, but first I look at why Rishi Sunak’s hasn’t.
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During Labour’s troubled 1983 general election campaign, the party’s general secretary Jim Mortimer announced without warning at a daily press conference: “The unanimous view of the campaign committee is that Michael Foot is the leader of the Labour Party and speaks for the party.”
This farcical scene – unrivalled for 41 years – has now been matched. History will record last weekend as the moment that cabinet ministers were forced to deny that Rishi Sunak would resign ahead of an election that he called. “Absolutely, there should be no question of anything other than that,” replied Mel Stride, the Work and Pensions Secretary, when asked whether Sunak would still be leading the Conservative Party on 4 July.
Journalists only got the chance to ask Sunak himself this today after he avoided TV interviews for 48 hours (following this fraught encounter with Sky News’ Sam Coates over his D-Day exit). This is just one of the morbid symptoms now afflicting the Conservative Party.
An aide to the Tory chairman Richard Holden interjected during another Sky interview as Holden was questioned on why he chose to stand in Basildon and Billericay, Essex (Tory majority: 20,412) so far away from the marginal North Durham, which is replacing his previous seat of North West Durham. The party, meanwhile, has suspended all social media campaigning owing to financial woes. So low is morale that some of its activists are on a de facto strike.
At the outset of the election, a Labour insider observed to me: “The government controls the timing of the election but you would think we control it.” This impression has only deepened in the weeks since. A snap election that was intended to revive Tory fortunes has seen Labour’s poll lead increase from an average of 20 points to 22 points.
One of the Western world’s most successful parties now faces perhaps the worst defeat in its history. First past the post – as the Liberal Democrats and Scottish Labour can testify – ruthlessly punishes parties that shed support across the country.
In 2005, on the eve of Labour’s third consecutive election victory, Geoffrey Wheatcroft published The Strange Death of Tory England. Expect to see this title invoked in the weeks ahead.
Yet there is arguably nothing strange about the Tories’ near-death – the culprits are well known. The party elected Boris Johnson – a man whose colleagues repeatedly described him as unfit to be prime minister. It then elected Liz Truss, a free-market ideologue who wanted to govern a country other than Britain.
In the manner of someone lighting a match in a petrol station, both leaders set fire to their party’s majority. Sunak has since failed to douse the flames and has lit a few matches of his own.
Most elections are won or lost before a campaign begins. It wasn’t the Sheffield rally that denied Neil Kinnock victory in 1992 and it wasn’t the bacon sandwich or the “EdStone” that cost Ed Miliband in 2015 (both men were already destined for defeat). Similarly, though the correlation will be irresistible to some, it wasn’t the D-Day debacle that doomed Sunak. It was, however, a moment that crystallised why the Prime Minister is losing: poor political judgement; a remote and distant style; an impatience with much of humanity.
Parties can sometimes lose an election but win a campaign (recall Labour’s “brilliant defeat” in 1987 or its 2017 insurgency). The Conservatives, however, are currently losing both. They now resemble a zombie party: one no longer truly human which can only stagger to meet its fate on 4 July.
George’s picks
The New Statesman’s new Staggers editor Nick Harris writes on Nigel Farage’s very English populism.
Ben explores how the Scottish Conservatives could help save the party from oblivion.
Freddie interviews the SNP’s Stephen Flynn on whether he’ll be heading north.
Follow the New Statesman Podcast on Apple Podcasts for daily election analysis:
Emmanuel Macron is gambling with France’s future – and Europe’s
Emmanuel Macron, the man who likes to talk about Europe, left no time for talking about Europe. His political stunt yesterday to call snap parliamentary elections in France has deflected all attention from the weekend’s European Parliament vote back to national politics. French political parties now have three weeks to prepare.
In the European parliamentary election in France, Macron’s list was led by Valérie Hayer – and it suffered a proper defeat, in line with what the polls predicted. The leader of the hard-right National Rally (RN) Jordan Bardella’s list got 30 seats with 31.5 per cent of the votes. Macron’s alliance got less than half of that: 13 seats with 14.6 per cent. This is the same number of seats won by Rafaël Glucksmann’s list, from the left, which got 14 per cent.
Considering these results, the French legislative election looks like a Machiavellian move for Macron to shore up his power – with little consideration given to what this means for Europe. With a blink of an eye, the French president turned the page on the European results and seemingly conceded to the demands of Marine Le Pen’s RN, which had been calling for a National Assembly election.
Nevertheless, Macron aims to win this bet. Let’s go through the scenarios of this Assembly dissolution. Risk number one is the campaign itself. Macron puts all his stock in his ability to mobilise against the far right. His theme will be either-me-or-chaos, which has been the same theme since 2017 when he was first elected president. The assumption is that people may protest against Macron in a European election, but surely they will come to their senses in a national election. In his announcement last night, he warned the nationalists were a danger for France and for France’s place in Europe. He said they would impoverish and downgrade France. Will his firewall against the hard right work?
Giorgia Meloni in Italy proved to be a lesser threat once in government. Marine Le Pen and Bardella have been professionalising their party’s message for years. They are no longer considered a threat by voters. Bardella even appeals to centre-right Republicans with his discourse, while Le Pen has strengthened her support in small villages and towns. Macron’s expectation must be that RN is not ready to govern France, as it says it is. Can the RN win the legislative elections? If so, can Bardella govern as prime minister? Maybe they will fail once in government, and this failure would compromise their chances in the 2027 presidential elections. This must be the assumption behind Macron’s move.
But what if this is wrong? Everyone who saw the TV duel between the current prime minister Gabriel Attal and Bardella in late May would concede that Attal won – but still the votes increased for Bardella. He was the anti-hero who got the sympathy points. How can Macron’s team compete with someone like him? For RN to win the election, it must get 200 more seats than the 88 it currently has. This will be difficult, but not impossible, according to some polls. If RN comes first, France would be in a co-habitation scenario – when the president’s party is different from the prime minister’s. Macron would have to nominate a new prime minister, most likely Bardella. Even under this scenario, Macron could hope to gain.
Co-habitation worked for Jacques Chirac when he nominated the Socialists’ Lionel Jospin for the premiership in 1997, and four years earlier when François Mitterrand appointed Édouard Balladur from the centre-right Republicans. But back then, co-habitation was between traditional parties in the Fifth Republic, not between two new parties that had never been in power before 2017.
Can Macron’s Renaissance party win with just weeks to go? Or can it at least enlarge its majority? Éric Ciotti, leader of the Republicans, has already indicated that he is not considering an alliance with Renaissance. This position may not be shared throughout his party, as the rumblings from high-profile party figures Nicolas Sarkozy and Gérald Larcher suggest.
Macron’s calculation could be that he can win over those in the Republican party who want to prevent by all means a Le Pen presidency. Macron may even pick up some from the left for the same reason. But the gravitational force Macron once had in the centre has gone. His discourse no longer electrifies, while there is polarisation towards the left and right.
If RN was to get into power and claim the prime minister’s job, a rift between Bardella and Le Pen could also risk its ascent to power. The two have differences, which may become more prominent once in power. Le Pen used to promise policies from the left while Bardella is strongly anchored on the right. If Bardella was to succeed as prime minister, how would this reflect on Le Pen?
Macron is putting himself on the line. If RN wins the elections, what does this mean for Macron as president, having just warned about the danger of a government run by the hard right? Would people conclude that Macron has to quit? This in itself may become a motivation for people to vote against the president’s party. Even if Macron was to stay and work with Bardella as his prime minister, it would weaken him as a leader at home and in Europe.
The timing of these elections could also reduce the chances of Ursula von der Leyen being confirmed for a second term as president of the European Commission. The European Council will decide on the candidate for the presidency at its meeting on 27 June, three days before the first round of the French legislative elections. If Macron does not want to express himself on this matter, her momentum may be lost. Macron could also make a bold move and suggest another candidate. For example, he could put forward the former Italian prime minister and head of the European Central Bank Mario Draghi, an offer that even Meloni may not be able to refuse.
Macron’s move may be bold, but it exposes vulnerabilities in his own camp and in Europe at a time when leadership is most needed. That is the real failure of Macron’s second term.
Mailshot
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Ben’s take
Twenty-four days to go. Barely anything has changed. The narrowing that happens in 90 per cent of elections doesn’t appear to be taking place. In fact, some things are getting even worse for the Conservatives.
Labour’s lead on the economy has grown from 13 points to 15 points. Starmer’s lead over Sunak has stayed stock still. But Starmer’s own reputation has risen from a net score of +1 to +4, as of the end of last week.
That compares quite poorly with previous incoming prime ministers. David Cameron arrived with overwhelming majority favourability, ditto Tony Blair, Margaret Thatcher and Harold Wilson. Keir Starmer will be entering No 10 with less-than-ideal favourables. But in an election that is less about him, more about how he compares with his opponent, Starmer need not fear. For against Sunak he is 12 points clear.
I think there's one big thing missing from the analysis of Macron - the JO. I live in Paris, and all of France is hugely concerned about security at the Olympics (and regretting how open and expansive the plan is). If something happens related to terrorism, support for the right will surge even more. By holding the elections directly before, Macron is gambling on the French not wanting to destabilise their country (change security ministers etc) on the eve of such a huge event when the world will be watching.