The absent opposition

Oppositions don’t win elections — governments lose them. This has long been the Westminster wisdom. But the truth is that oppositions can lose elections, too: they must pass a basic competency test to be considered for office. Today, however, no party resembles a credible opposition to the Tories, let alone a government in waiting.

What makes this absence so striking is that the government is in such a perilous position. It must somehow implement Brexit. Leaving the EU will crowd out Theresa May’s domestic priorities and reveal all the divisions in the Tory party over what kind of relationship with the EU the UK should seek. As one Tory with good links to No. 10 puts it, ‘People regard this as existential to the country and so they will behave in a principledmanner, and won’t be whipped as easily.’

The short-term economic fallout from Britain leaving the EU won’t be simple for the government to deal with, either. If the fall in the pound leads to inflation of 4 to 5 per cent, then Britain will be back in a cost of living crisis — with prices rising faster than wages — of the sort that caused so much political difficulty to the coalition government in 2011 and 2012.

Timing is an issue, too. May has ruled out an early election, saying that the country needs a period of stability between now and 2020 to make progress. Going to the country before then would undermine her reputation for getting on with the job. But 2020 is a tight timeframe by which to achieve Brexit. May has said she will invoke the two-year process for leaving the EU before the end of March next year. But she has admitted that the process of leaving might take longer than that. Even if it is all done by 2019, the history of government IT systems doesn’t suggest that a new work-permit-based immigration system would be operating successfully by the time of the next election.

Nevertheless, the assumption at Westminster is that 2020 is a slam dunk for the Tories, the main question being: by how much can Theresa May increase her majority? That’s because the opposition is so weak.

Jeremy Corbyn is more secure as Labour leader than he has ever been.