“Have these idiots never heard of Gary Hart?” Such was the exasperated response of a veteran One Nation Conservative yesterday to the failure of “small boats week”.
The “idiots” in question, of course, were Rishi Sunak and his ministerial colleagues. Hart was the front-runner for the 1988 US Democratic presidential nomination who famously invited the press to “follow me around” in May 1987 in search of evidence of his alleged womanising — and was forced to stand down as a candidate only five days later, following the disclosure that he had taken an overnight trip with a younger woman on a luxury yacht called Monkey Business.
By referring to Hart, this Tory grandee was making a basic point about politics: don’t draw attention to your idiocies or your weaknesses. In this case, ministers were sent out to champion a policy strategy that has proved an embarrassing failure to date — and is getting worse in real time.
Even as they boasted about the Prime Minister’s determination to thwart illegal migration generally and the cross-Channel boats full of refugees specifically, the burning timbers of his plan were crashing down all around them.
The polls show that on migration the public isn’t buying what Sunak and Braverman are selling
Last Tuesday, Lee Anderson, the Conservative deputy chair, told Nigel Farage on GB News that “we have failed on this, there’s no doubt about it”. As if to prove the point, on Friday the Bibby Stockholm — the barge docked off Portland Port in Dorset to house 500 asylum seekers — was evacuated after traces of legionella bacteria were detected in the water supply. It appears, unbelievably, that the Home Office was made aware of the test findings on Tuesday but that ministers did not transfer the 39 migrants already on board until three days later.
Much worse, six people died early on Saturday morning after a boat carrying Afghan migrants sank in the Channel. Last night, The Times reported that the European Union has rejected a new migrant returns agreement proposed by the UK government.
In June, the court of appeal declared unlawful its plan to send refugees to Rwanda, forcing Sunak and Home Secretary Suella Braverman to consider deportations to other unsuitable locations such as Ascension Island.
On the Conservative backbenches, meanwhile, pressure is mounting for the party’s general election manifesto to include a commitment to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights; widely perceived as the legal text doing most to thwart the “small boats” plan. But this is still a remote prospect.
In briefings to the weekend press, the PM’s allies claimed that successful policy was, in fact, less important than the voters’ supposed belief that the Government was “on their side”. This is delusion of a high order. In the first place, poll after poll shows that when it comes to migration the public isn’t buying what Sunak and Braverman are selling.
Second: it is truly extraordinary for a party that has been in office for more than 13 years to claim that this (alleged) alignment of its values with the electorate’s is more significant than its practical achievements — or lack thereof.
This is the mentality of a pressure group, not a government seeking a fifth term. On migration, Sunak’s strategy is uncannily reminiscent of Michael Howard’s dog-whistling campaign — “Are you thinking what we’re thinking?” — before the 2005 election. But Howard was leader of the Opposition, struggling to save a party that had already suffered two landslide defeats. He was unable to prevent Tony Blair from winning yet again.
Is this really a sensible model for Sunak to follow today? Yes, Boris Johnson was able to win a thumping 80-seat majority in 2019 with a campaign that led on culture and values. But his primary political objective was to “get Brexit done”; and his opponent was Jeremy Corbyn, whose patriotism was questioned by a great many traditional Labour voters.
In contrast, Sunak will be up against Keir Starmer: a very different proposition. And, this time, the voters are overwhelmingly preoccupied by practical problems: the cost-of-living crisis, the intense strain on public services, the continuing wave of strikes. In such a context, petty culture wars and macho slogans just aren’t going to cut it.
It is odd that the PM should think otherwise; odder still that he should devote a week to an area of policy that is marked by abject failure. The answer to the puzzle is as clear as it is harsh: that Rishi Sunak is a truly terrible politician.
