In the weeks immediately preceding an election, government resources are not meant to be deployed for party political campaigns. The convention – commonly called “purdah” but officially described as the “pre-election period of sensitivity” – is not an enforceable prohibition. It relies on deference to democratic protocol and an intuitive sense of what constitutes fair play in the electoral arena.
The Conservative party has abandoned those qualities. The period running up to Thursday’s local, mayoral and police commissioner elections across England have been punctuated with government announcements that look customised more for campaign purposes than practical administration. In the days before the polls open, the Home Office has boasted of successfully flying an asylum seeker to Rwanda, and released a video showing immigration enforcement officers raiding homes and putting people in secure vans ready for deportation.
Official guidance on how to discern the boundary between party politics and normal government business is vague. Borderline breaches are commonplace, especially since national administration rolls on largely irrespective of local election campaigns. But the current deployment of the central government machine in what amounts to a state-run campaign on behalf of the Tory party is egregious.
That would be unacceptable if it were only a matter of government communications crossing the line. The official social media accounts of Whitehall departments should not be pumping out party election broadcasts in all but name. But, much worse, policy itself has too often been fashioned as a campaign instrument.
Long-term practicality has never been a consideration in legislation for the Rwanda scheme. Quite aside from the ethical and judicial arguments over that country’s suitability as a “safe” destination, there is no evidence that the purported effect of deterring illegal Channel crossings will work. The shoddily drafted laws risk casting tens of thousands of asylum claimants into stateless legal limbo.
The one person dispatched to Kigali this week is reported to have travelled voluntarily under a different scheme that incentivises resettlement with a £3,000 grant. That is not the mechanism Rishi Sunak has been advertising, nor is it obviously a deterrent at work.
The Home Office videos of immigration raids give no context about actual cases. These are not exercises in giving the public information but a macabre, vindictive theatre of law enforcement, crafted for a very particular audience – former Conservative voters who have abandoned the party since 2019 and are now minded to support Reform UK.
That is the electoral segment animating the greatest anxiety among Tory backbench MPs, and that party strategists are desperate to win back with a defensive campaign of damage limitation. Downing Street has effectively abandoned any pretence of serving the country as a whole, pulling every lever of executive and legislative power to protect a prime minister who might yet be vulnerable to defenestration by a panicky party if Thursday’s results are calamitous.
Absent from consideration is the humanity and dignity of vulnerable people, many of them traumatised by war, separated from family, desperate for sanctuary, who find themselves now cast as extras in a vast propaganda pantomime staged by a failing regime. The relentless determination to criminalise and then punish refugees who enter Britain without permission has expunged all vestige of compassion from the Conservative platform.
It is doubtful that that process can redeem Mr Sunak’s electoral fortunes, and it is certain to besmirch what reputation he might have on leaving office. The longer this grubby charade goes on, the meaner his legacy looks. Since meaningful government business has already been abandoned, the one remaining act of public service the prime minister could usefully perform would be to bring his campaign into the open and call a general election.
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