‘Everyone knows it will be a disaster’ – May’s invisible campaign

The room is booked, the camera tripods assembled, the crowd of eager, political types – including a healthy smattering of aides, wannabes and reporters – in place, ready for the event to get under way. The appointed time ticks past, but that’s OK: indeed, for a campaign event, it’s almost a positive. It suggests the big speaker is late because he or she is in demand somewhere else, that the crowd at their previous stop just wouldn’t let go. It can build anticipation. A matter of days before an election, this is how it should be.

And make no mistake: this is a campaign event and an election is looming. Except, when Sajid Javid finally enters the hall in Westminster – the room rented from the Mothers’ Union by the Thatcherite Centre for Policy Studies – it soon becomes clear that the election in question is not the one for the European parliament on Thursday, a ballot which neither the home secretary nor the man who introduces him will so much as mention.

Some 400 million European citizens are eligible to vote this week, but that’s not the contest on the minds of the people in this room. The one they’re all thinking about, and that hovers between the lines of Javid’s short speech, has a much smaller electorate: 313 Conservative MPs and an estimated 100,000 party members, each with a say in who will succeed Theresa May as Conservative leader and prime minister.

Indeed, that contest will only gather momentum, as May’s exit becomes ever more imminent. Twenty-four hours before the polls open, her cabinet colleagues will be measuring her political future in days.

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Officially, Javid is here to launch a new report into small business, a move which has roused a Westminster press corps always on the lookout for signs of a cabinet minister roaming beyond his or her brief.

And so, when Javid opens with a tribute to Margaret Thatcher, and then moves on to what Westminster folk call his backstory (“I’m sure all of you at some point will have heard me say that my dad was a bus driver…”), before serving up a less familiar slice of autobiography, recalling how his father went on the buses solely so he might save enough money to start a small business, a market stall at first, selling women’s clothing – when Javid does all that, he’s assumed to be engaging in the same activity as the other Tories who’ve been doing magazine interviews recently, showing off their spouses or multiple ovens or, occasionally, both.

The home secretary, Sajid Javid, who spoke about his ‘backstory’ at the event in Westminster.Photograph: Mark Thomas/REX/Shutterstock

The assumption is that he, and they, are campaigning all right – just not for the European elections. Instead, they’re surely limbering up for the Tory leadership contest. That’s what the reporters present are here for, few of them interested in the finer points of Javid’s vision for small- or medium-sized enterprises.

The home secretary disappoints on that score, refusing to make the move Boris Johnson will make that same day and announce he’s running. He won’t even take questions. When the Guardian buttonholes him to ask what he’s doing in a Westminster ballroom rather than out on the campaign trail for an election less than a week away, he insists that “I have been campaigning” and he’s sure that’s true of his colleagues too.

When the Guardian replies that, as it happens, there has not been a single high-profile Conservative event for these elections, Javid is insistent: “Well, I’ve done some campaigning: I’ve been out, I’ve been out. And in Peterborough, we’re going out there soon as well.” Ah, but that’s a byelection for a seat in Westminster. That’s different. What about the European elections? “Two elections going on in Peterborough,” the home secretary says before he is ushered away.

Later a special adviser to Javid will clarify that he has not, in fact, done any campaigning for the European elections. But that hardly makes him unusual among the Tory top brass. On the contrary, none of them has done anything you’d recognise as fighting to get MEPs elected. When Esther McVey launched her Blue Collar Conservatism group on Monday, once again the European elections went entirely unmentioned. Put simply, the Tory effort for next Thursday’s contest has been the invisible campaign.

Although even that description is too flattering: it implies that activity is under way, it’s just we can’t see it. But this is not a stealth campaign, one cunningly fought below radar. The grimmer reality for the governing party of the United Kingdom is that its campaign for seats in the European parliament simply does not exist.

Countless are the voters all over the country who say they’ve received fliers from the Brexit party, the Lib Dems, the Greens and Labour but nothing from the Conservative party (Scotland is an exception, where “Ruth Davidson’s Scottish Conservative team” have put out a flier). That’s strikingly the case in areas that are solidly Tory, from Devon to Wiltshire, from Amber Rudd’s East Sussex to Mark Francois’s Essex.

A Twitter call-out establishes that a UK Conservative Euro-election leaflet does exist, but hardly any voters have seen it. Not that it would be likely to rouse a mass stampede to the ballot box if they had. Its second paragraph begins: “How can these elections be stopped?”

And there, in a nutshell, is the explanation for this non-campaign. The Tories never wanted these elections to happen at all. Indeed, it was one of the multiple Brexit promises Theresa May made which she ended up breaking: just as she vowed over and over again that Britain would leave the EU on 29 March, so she was repeatedly clear that the UK would not take part in European elections on 23 May, that it would be a disaster if it did. Clearly when that rarely-spotted campaign leaflet was printed, the hope that the vote could be avoided still flickered. But here we are.

It’s hard to campaign full-throatedly for an election you promised to cancel, to a body you pledged to leave. And yet that is May’s plight. The result is that there has been no poster unveiling, no manifesto, no battle-bus, no campaign speech. While Nigel Farage is out doing his rallies or getting milkshaked, while Jeremy Corbyn faces Andrew Marr or Vince Cable awkwardly declares “Bollocks to Brexit”, Theresa May has not done a single public event for these elections.

Which is not to say there has been no event at all. Last Friday, perhaps to make it impossible to say she had literally done nothing, the prime minister did do something that the BBC dutifully reported as “campaigning in Bristol”. Billed as a “launch” – even though it was six days before polling day – May entered a holding room at Ashton Gate, the home of Bristol City football club, that contained no supporters or members of the public, but instead two TV camera operators, two photographers and a single Sky News reporter, whose work would then be “pooled” with the rest of the press. Flanked by the four Tory candidates for the south-west region, the PM read out a prepared statement and answered a sole question from the only reporter present.

To the undiscerning eye, it might have looked like a genuine campaign stop, though the optics were not great. As one seasoned Westminster hand quipped, May had opted for “the classic ‘victim’s family appeals for witnesses to come forward’ style of election campaign launch”. But regardless of how it looked, it was wholly bogus. It was the definition of a non-event.

May speaking in Bristol ahead of the EU elections.Photograph: Toby Melville/PA

“No one wants to have anything to do with it,” was how one seasoned Tory operative put it to the Guardian at that Javid event. “Everyone knows it’s going to be a disaster.” For cabinet ministers to be seen campaigning is to reserve a future share of the blame. Better to keep your hands clean and prepare for the postmortem, albeit before the mortem has happened. Even with the polls showing the Tories in single figures and in fifth place, behind the Greens? “You take the hit and move on.”

Michael Gove

The fortunes of the environment secretary remain hard to predict and opinion is split in the party. His detractors believe he is deeply unpopular with the country and has ruined his reputation for good when he stood against Johnson at the last leadership race. Most MPs were delighted by his performance in the no-confidence vote where he tore into Corbyn. But robust Brexiters dislike the fact he has stayed loyal even in the final days of the crumbling May regime.

Matt Hancock

While the response of many voters to mention of the health secretary is still likely to be ‘Who?’, to some he is starting to have the makings of a from-the-sidelines contender. The former culture secretary is only 40 but has six years of frontbench experience, and is on to his second cabinet post. The longer the race goes on the more he gains ground for the seemingly basic virtues of being apparently competent and broadly similar to a normal human being.

Jeremy Hunt

The nickname ‘Theresa in trousers’ has stuck. Most colleagues speak about his candidacy unenthusiastically and warn about his reputation with the country after having weathered the junior doctors’ strike. He could still succeed by bridging the Brexit-remain divide and attracting colleagues looking for a moderate grown-up, but  recently he seemed unable to outline why his brand of Conservatism might appeal to voters.

Sajid Javid

The home secretary is reported to have told Tory MPs he is the only one who can beat Jeremy Corbyn in a general election, but has made less of an impact than first predicted. Several MPs believe that the case of Isis bride Shamima Begum was mishandled and find Javid’s speeches and vision less than inspiring.

Boris Johnson

Still favourite for the top job, Johnson has kept himself out of the messiest Tory warfare in 2019 and has enthusiastic support from younger Brexiter MPs – and the patronage of Jacob Rees-Mogg. His supporters insist no other name on the list can connect with voters in the same way and win a general election. However, his reputation is still severely damaged from his time as foreign secretary and there is a concerted ‘anyone but Boris’ campaign among party colleagues.

Andrea Leadsom

Leadsom has revived her reputation somewhat during her tenure as Commons leader, especially her rounds in the ring with the Speaker, John Bercow. However, few believe she would ever be first choice again among Eurosceptics and a number of her former campaign team have said they will discourage her from running.

Esther McVey

Former cabinet minister McVey has already announced her intention to run. She has the Brexit credentials, having quit as Work and Pensions Secretary in protest at Theresa May's withdrawal agreement, and claims to already have enough support from fellow MPs to make her bid viable.

Penny Mordaunt

Previously seen as a definite outsider, her promotion from international development secretary to defence after the sacking of Gavin Williamson has significantly bolstered her position. As both a confirmed Brexiter and a social liberal she could unite different camps, but she remains relatively untested.

Dominic Raab

The former Brexit secretary has a loyal fanbase and a professional team, including support from Vote Leave’s ex-comms director Paul Stephenson. MPs are forming the view that the next party leader should be a younger face from a new generation of politicians – which gives Raab the edge over Boris Johnson. 

Amber Rudd

While she has not officially ruled herself out, Rudd’s remainer tendencies and slender majority in her Hastings constituency mean the work and pensions secretary is largely being courted for who she might eventually endorse.

Liz Truss

As much for effort as inspiration. The chief secretary to the Treasury has been almost everywhere the last few weeks – including modelling some slightly alarming trousers in the Mail on Sunday – to explain her free market, libertarian philosophy. Everyone knows what she thinks, but this will still perhaps not be enough.

And those not in the running

Among the senior figures not expected to run are Brandon Lewis, the party chairman, Chris Grayling, the transport secretary, and Philip Hammond, the chancellor, who acknowledges that he is not popular enough. Gavin Williamson’s recent sacking after the Huawei leak inquiry will also surely rule him out as an option this time around.

“I think the whole party would rather not be fighting them – to be seen to do is such an embarrassing reminder of our betrayal of the Brexit campaigners TM shamelessly pandered to,” texts a former minister. That’s the squeeze in a nutshell: Tory leavers cannot forgive May for betraying her Brexit promises, Tory remainers cannot forgive her for making them in the first place.

On Tuesday, that squeeze got even tighter, as May gave what might have been the opposite of a campaign speech, one almost designed to repel Tory voters. As she made one last pitch for her deal, she dangled the possibility of a second referendum – not emphatically enough to lure remainers, but clearly enough to push any wavering leavers into the arms of Nigel Farage’s Brexit party. And she did it less than 48 hours before the polls were due to open. The result is the Conservative party on course for what will surely be the worst UK-wide electoral performance in its history.

Only in one place is there a hint of compassion for the outgoing prime minister. On a weekend visit to her Maidenhead constituency, there was plenty of admiration for her resilience, of course, and her dogged hard work, including as a local MP. Outside the local Conservative club, Alan Stiles, 52, a warehouse worker, said the person to blame was not May, but David Cameron. “He’s the one who caused all this hassle.”

Hannah Bouckley, 40 years old and a manager for a telecom company, was similarly reluctant to speak ill of May. The PM was normally so visible: she’d visited Bouckley’s son’s school three times. And Bouckley could make no complaints about life in Maidenhead: “It’s the poor man’s Windsor,” she smiled. But this time May and her party had been invisible: “No leaflets, nothing at the station, nothing. I think they think we’re a dead cert – but we’re not.”

The Conservative party have spent this strange, unwanted campaign out of sight. But on Thursday that will end – and when the votes are tallied, there’ll be no place to hide.