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Majority of voters think Boris Johnson would make bad PM - polling expert Corbyn as PM would be 'west's first antisemitic leader since WWII'
(about 4 hours later)
Many voters have a “distinct antipathy” towards Boris Johnson, which could hamper his chances of winning a future general election even if he delivered Brexit, the Conservative peer and polling expert Robert Hayward has said. The health secretary, Matt Hancock, has claimed that if Jeremy Corbyn won a general election he would be “the first antisemitic leader of a western nation since the second world war”.
Johnson is the overwhelming favourite in the race to succeed Theresa May, in which will the field of 11 candidates – with more likely to declare – will be whittled down to two over the next fortnight. Speaking at a private hustings event in Westminster for the Tory leadership, Hancock sought to portray himself as the best candidate to appeal to younger voters and win a general election.
After analysing a slew of recent polls on the parties and candidates, Hayward said a new Tory leader would not win a general election unless they were “transfer-friendly”. According to a supporter in the room on Wednesday night, he warned colleagues: “The Conservative party has to get this right. If we don’t, we could end up with the first antisemitic leader of a western nation since the second world war.”
The shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, said the remarks were “a disgrace”.
A Labour source said: “This baseless political attack rings hollow from a minister in a party that has supported governments that actively promote antisemitic policies in Hungary and Poland, and has spent the week wooing Trump – the man who refused to condemn neo-fascists in Charlottesville who chanted ‘Jews will not replace us’.”
Labour’s record on tackling antisemitism within the party has been a persistent source of concern, including among many of its own backbenchers. The shadow foreign secretary, Emily Thornberry, said earlier this week the party needed to deal with it more robustly.
Corbyn spent Wednesday in Portsmouth, attending the D-day commemorations alongside world leaders including Trump.
The Tory leadership race is moving up a gear, with the first round of voting by MPs taking place on Thursday week.
Hancock, Michael Gove, Jeremy Hunt and Dominic Raab made their pitch at an event organised by the One Nation group of Conservative MPs.
The health secretary argued he was a better bet to fight the next general election than a rightwing Brexit supporter. He said he wanted to “slay the unicorn” that the next Tory leader had to have voted to leave the EU in 2016.
“We don’t need a Brexiteer as prime minister. We need someone who is committed to delivering Brexit,” he said, arguing that the next election could only be won by a “one nation” candidate.
“We don’t win the next election by only appealing to our base. We win by appealing to the next generation and appealing to people who haven’t voted conservative before,” he said.
Hancock trails Johnson, Gove and Hunt by a significant margin, judging by public declarations of support from Conservative MPs.
But his argument about appealing to the centre-ground was given some credence on Tuesday by an analysis from the Conservative peer and polling expert Robert Hayward. He said it would be impossible for the Tories to win an election with a leader who was not “transfer friendly”, and able to attract swing voters who were neither committed leavers nor remainers.
“A Tory prime minister or leader can’t win without Brexiteers; but you actually can’t win without the people who don’t strongly identify with one side or the other, and are looking for good government,” he said.“A Tory prime minister or leader can’t win without Brexiteers; but you actually can’t win without the people who don’t strongly identify with one side or the other, and are looking for good government,” he said.
And he said Johnson may not be the right person to do that because many voters have a “distinct antipathy” towards him.
He said that while Johnson was very popular with a section of the electorate, he was also the leadership frontrunner who voters were most likely to say would make a bad prime minister.He said that while Johnson was very popular with a section of the electorate, he was also the leadership frontrunner who voters were most likely to say would make a bad prime minister.
“There is a distinct antipathy towards Boris,” he said. He pointed to a recent YouGov poll that suggested as many as 23% of respondents who had voted Conservative in 2017 thought Johnson would be a “very bad” prime minister. Hayward pointed to a recent YouGov poll that suggested as many as 23% of respondents who had voted Conservative in 2017 thought Johnson would be a “very bad” prime minister.
In the same poll, 28% of the public thought he would make a good prime minister, outstripping any of the other eight candidates they asked about – but 54% thought he would make a bad PM. In the same poll, 28% of the public thought he would make a good prime minister, outstripping any of the other eight candidates they asked about, but 54% thought he would do a bad job. For Gove, the equivalent numbers were 16% and 47% – and for Hunt, 13% and 42%.
For Gove, the equivalent numbers were 16% and 45% – and for Hunt, 13% and 42%.
“Gove and Hunt have similar problems; but the voters don’t appear to be so antipathetic, particularly to Hunt, and to some extent to Gove,” he said.“Gove and Hunt have similar problems; but the voters don’t appear to be so antipathetic, particularly to Hunt, and to some extent to Gove,” he said.
More centrist candidates, including Matt Hancock and Rory Stewart, have so far failed to make much headway with MPs, with Nigel Farage’s Brexit party making inroads into Tory support in the polls. Johnson told MPs at Tuesday night’s private hustings: “We are facing an existential crisis and will not be forgiven if we do not deliver Brexit on 31 October.”
But MPs, and the Tory members who will make the final choice, must also consider which candidates would be best suited to confront Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party in a future general election. But Hayward argued that Johnson must also show what he could do to win over non-Brexiters.
Polling suggests the electorate is roughly divided into thirds, according to Hayward’s analysis, with one-third identifying as remain, one third as pro-Brexit, and the rest who could be won over by a “transfer-friendly” leader from either side. At Wednesday’s hustings, Gove risked a backlash from hard Brexiters by saying he would be willing to delay leaving the EU by a few weeks or months beyond the October deadline, if it proved necessary to finalise a deal.
He pointed out that many of these swing voters can be found in Conservative strongholds in the home counties and south-east – including areas where the Liberal Democrats made significant gains at the expense of the Tories at last month’s local elections. George Eustice, the former farming minister, who backs Gove, said he had sought to be “honest” about the choices that might face the next leader.
“All candidates need to understand what happened in the local elections and is confirmed in the polls,” he said. “If we get to a point where we have nearly got a deal, where we’re 95% of the way there, you just need a few more weeks or a few more months, it would be foolhardy to flounce off,” he said.
Johnson told MPs at Tuesday night’s private hustings for Tory MPs: “We are facing an existential crisis and will not be forgiven if we do not deliver Brexit on 31 October.” But, he added, “he was clear that he won’t take no deal off the table: if the choice was no deal or no Brexit, he would definitely take no deal”. He said Gove would seek, “a full stop to the backstop”.
But Hayward argued that Johnson must also show what he could do to win over non-Brexiters. “He has to complete the sentence,” he said. Hunt’s pitch at the event involved highlighting the lessons the Tories could learn from the US president. “Trump focuses more on communicating with his base than we do. The Trump base has remained solid because he arrives at work knowing what the world is thinking and the world knows what he is thinking,” he said.
Some MPs also have reservations about Gove’s popularity with the electorate. One aide working for a rival candidate was keen to point out that David Cameron moved Gove from education secretary to chief whip in 2014 because party polling showed he was too unpopular with voters to be front of house in the upcoming general election. On a day when the European Research Group chair, Steve Baker, described Brexit as a battle for “death or glory”, the foreign secretary also warned against taking an excessively hard line with the EU.
Boris Johnson “There is a deal here and we have a responsibility to find it. If we go to the EU and put a gun to their head they’re going to walk,” he said, according to a source in the room.
Conservative leadershipConservative leadership
Matt Hancock
ConservativesConservatives
Boris Johnson
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