LONDON — You have to hand it to Prime Minister Theresa May: She is a tactical genius.
Her decision to suddenly call a snap election for June 8 does not just take advantage of the poor polling ratings of the opposition parties; it locked them into an impossible dilemma whose choices only benefitted the Conservative Party.
Here is how it worked.
On the surface, the decision to go to the polls three years before the scheduled vote in 2020 looks like an obvious power grab: She knows the Labour Party, polling at just 23%, is at its weakest.
This is a never-to-be-repeated opportunity to increase her majority while the opposition is down and out. There appears to be no significant Liberal Democrat rebound. UKIP is in shambles under its untrustworthy new leader. The SNP is locked behind The Wall.
But that is not the sum of it.
Wednesday's vote in the Commons — she needed a two-thirds majority to trigger the election, and exceeded that with 522 in favour to 13 against — put Labour an impossible decision:
- By saying yes to an election, which it knows it will lose, Labour agreed to five more years of Tory government.
- If Labour had said no, the party would have signed on for three more years of Tory government, until the regularly scheduled vote in 2020.
On that basis, taking the second choice was actually more valuable for Labour.
Yet, Labour went along with May's plan.
Numerous Labour MPs have started to worry about this. The Guardian, since Tuesday, pinned this curious story to the front page of its website. It reports on the small number of MPs who believe that the election is basically a trap and that the party should surprise May by opposing her plan to hold it. The Guardian's editorial page is also arguing against holding an election.
May knows the election must come now, because by 2020 we could be in a post-Brexit recession that would make her reelection bid complicated. UK households are already feeling cash-poor as the pound declines in value — an ominous signal for a sitting government.
An election this year also gives May her mandate before Britain sees the Brexit trade deal she cuts with the EU in 2019. That deal will most likely leave the UK poorer because, by definition, it will reduce the country's access to the European single market. A 2017 election means May doesn't have to face the consequences for that deal until 2022.
And that is just the mechanics.
Politically, May has also been deft. She has walked right into the centre ground just as Labour has waddled off to the left, claiming the rump of Blairite/Liberal/Tory moderate voters who have elected every government since 1997.
May has a technical majority of only 12 MPs. She needed opposition votes to execute her plan. The plan required opposition MPs to sign their own death warrants. Yet Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn — and all the others — agreed to it immediately Tuesday.
It was really very, very clever.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Insider.
