UK election 2019: Jeremy Corbyn doesn’t need to win to become PM
This column is devoted to that proposition. And to an allied proposition. Don’t go thinking that if Jeremy Corbyn becomes prime minister he won’t really be prime minister. If you’re prime minister, you’re the prime minister and you’re in charge and that’s that.
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Mr Corbyn has his fans. And his fans absolutely love him. But his fans are only making up in intensity what they lack in numbers. Sometimes on social media they seem to be everywhere. But that is only because a small proportion of a large number of people is still a large number of people.
In truth there has never been an opposition leader who has so narrow a base of public support. His latest satisfaction ratings, as measured by Ipsos Mori, showed 75 per cent dissatisfaction and 15 per cent satisfaction. And the 15 per cent includes [shadow chancellor of the exchequer] John McDonnell who is only pretending to be satisfied with him. Net -60 per cent is worse than Michael Foot’s worst rating in the 1980s.
So how on earth can he win from there? It’s fairly easy to see how.
The Conservatives are doing two things that make it hard for them to win a majority. They are trying to win more seats in what would be their fourth term in office, something that has never happened before in modern politics. And they are aiming to sack some old voters and hire some new ones who have yet to accept the job. The chances of losing Remain-orientated seats while failing to break through in Leave-orientated ones is quite high.
At the moment the gap between the Tories and Labour in the polls is so big that discussing individual seats seems like nitpicking. But that lead is largely the result of the Remain vote splitting while the Leave vote doesn’t split as much. Who can be sure that will persist throughout the campaign?
And if the Conservatives don’t win, then Jeremy Corbyn does. It’s as simple as that. Boris Johnson becomes prime minister or Jeremy Corbyn becomes prime minister.
It’s quite a stretch for Labour to win a majority from where things are. You can never be sure but I don’t think that will happen. However, Labour doesn’t need a majority to take power. It just needs the Conservatives not to have one.
It is hard to see from whom the Conservatives would garner support if they were the single largest party in a hung parliament. The Scottish National Party? Obviously not. The Liberal Democrats? Well, they would insist on stopping Brexit in one way or another, a condition the Conservatives couldn’t accept. I do not believe Boris Johnson could form a government based on support in the Commons from Jo Swinson and by promising her a second referendum. Even if he could persuade himself (and Jo Swinson) that it was a good idea. The Democratic Unionist Party? Not even if Boris started attending the Free Presbyterian Church would that happen.
So if this government doesn’t win a majority, the overwhelming chance is that it will fall. Which pretty much means Jeremy Corbyn.
You’ll notice that I added the words “pretty much” there. And sure, there is a small chance that Labour does so badly and the Lib Dems do so well that they have the leverage to change the leadership of the Labour Party. I’m willing to acknowledge this is a possible outcome, even if it’s not probable.
All that nonsense about a government of national unity before the election, surely we have learned something from that? For Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell to surrender the leadership to almost any Labour MP, or the MP of another party, is surrendering it to someone fundamentally at odds with their very particular ideology. And they will do all they can to resist it.
The Lib Dems insist that they will always vote for a second referendum and that they will never vote for Jeremy Corbyn. As they faff around while the window for their second referendum closes, they may well find these promises are incompatible. And it wouldn’t be the first time they’ve put themselves in that situation.
In addition, concentrating on the Lib Dems ignores the SNP which will possibly have more seats than them. The SNP knows that it can get from Corbyn and McDonnell an offer on another independence referendum that might be harder to wring from someone else. They’d want him to stay.
There is, of course, a soft version of the idea that Jeremy Corbyn will not be prime minister if Boris Johnson isn’t. And that is the idea he will be in No 10 but not really in charge. Prime Minister in office but not in power, in other words.
Well that role doesn’t exist. I have worked closely with three prime ministers and each of them, in different ways, had a rocky parliamentary position. Their power was still striking.
When I was interviewing David Cameron for his audio diaries, I noted how much of his time was spent on matters – particularly security and foreign policy – that required him and him alone to take big decisions.
Take the examples of how to respond to the Saville Inquiry on Bloody Sunday, or how to ensure the safety of the Falkland Islands. It is the prime minister who makes the judgment, the prime minister who calls the president of Mexico to discuss relationships with Argentina, the prime minister who reviews the intelligence reports.
If a British hostage is seized or if a terrorist gang is being traced, the decision about what to do has to be made by the prime minister. When there are riots in the streets or an outbreak of foot and mouth it is the prime minister who calls together the services and co-ordinates the response.
A common theme of prime ministerial memoirs is that there was so much more to the job than setting a direction and watching the machine follow it. They personally lead. They personally make judgments.
To believe that stopping Brexit is a national emergency and that Boris Johnson is so off-putting that it justifies a Corbyn government is a rational decision. I won’t make it but some of my friends will and I respect that. But let no one vote pretending to themselves that a Corbyn government could never happen or that, if it did, it wouldn’t matter. It could and it would.
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Not many people want Jeremy Corbyn to be prime minister. There are many days when it seems that Jeremy Corbyn himself doesn’t want to be prime minister. But that doesn’t mean he won’t be prime minister. There is a very good chance indeed that Jeremy Corbyn will be prime minister.