London doesn’t hate the Tories … that much

LONDON — To win London, the Conservatives need to lose the U.K. 

It might make little sense on the face of it — but it’s a rule that stands for most parties on the right when it comes to winning mayoral races in big cities, according to electoral experts. “The prospects for the Conservatives basically revolve around being in opposition [in Westminster],” said the Conservative peer and elections expert Robert Hayward.

Polling expert Peter Kellner, the former president of YouGov, explained that the Conservatives will need to get out of national office and “attract voters who have turned against the government of the day” to have a hope of winning in the capital.

It’s a rule that leaves Conservative candidate Shaun Bailey scant hope of winning City Hall from Labour incumbent Sadiq Khan next month, and it illustrates the mountain the Conservatives have to climb in London. And that mountain is getting steeper.

“The Conservatives have to win an election in London, while Labour have to not lose it,” said one London Conservative MP. “It’s a much bigger task for the Conservatives.”

The challenge is threefold: London has large young and ethnic minority populations that tend to support Labour; it’s more socially liberal than the rest of the U.K. (meaning Conservative culture wars backfire there); and it’s at the sharp end of the British housing crisis, with property ownership — often a gateway to Conservative support — out of reach for many. 

Add to that the fact the Conservatives are tied to Brexit, which London roundly rejected, and the coronavirus crisis drowning out opposition parties, and it’s a toxic mix at the ballot box.

Just one Conservative has won the mayoralty since the first election in 2000: Boris Johnson, who clinched it in 2008 and 2012.

The future prime minister not only stuck to the rule of winning when the Tories were in opposition nationally, he also had another requirement the Conservatives need to take City Hall: Star power. “You have to find a name, a personality … who has immediate cut-through with the public at large,” said Hayward.

Johnson was already a well-known public figure when he ran for the London mayoralty, following a career in journalism, courting controversy as an MP and appearances on TV panel shows. He had a level of household recognition Conservative candidates since have not. 

The effect of his branding power is shown in the election results: He won the crown but Labour still did well in the London Assembly elections on both occasions, even beating the Tories in 2012. Kellner said Johnson’s victories in London were a “slight aberration.”

Campaign woes

Hopes of the Conservatives matching Johnson’s unique wins are dwindling.

In 2016, Zac Goldsmith, the Eton-educated environmentalist Conservative candidate, lost to Khan by more than 13 percentage points. This time the Tories have gone with Shaun Bailey, a Black campaigner from inner London (albeit one of the posh bits) who worked a string of low-skilled jobs and has admitted committing burglary in his youth.

Bailey is again set to lose to Khan, with recent polls suggesting the incumbent will win in the first round, even before second preference votes are taken into account.

The odds might be stacked against him, but the Bailey campaign is said not to be firing on all cylinders. Former campaign aides POLITICO spoke to said expectations Bailey would lose, as well as the length of the campaign, had damaged morale. Indeed, the election was meant to be held a year ago but was delayed less than two months before polling day due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The hold-up threw the entire Bailey campaign out of kilter, creating budget and staffing problems. The extension stalled momentum and turned a normal race into a long and tiring, socially-distant slog.

A serving campaign official insisted there was no loss of enthusiasm and that the team was “punching above their weight.” The person said internal data is showing more promise than public polls, and that turnout drives will be happening in parts of inner London that the Tories have never bothered to campaign in before.

That in itself could be a problem, according to one former Conservative official. The person argued that polls showing Bailey has less support than the Conservatives overall suggest the campaign is failing to maintain the core Tory vote it needs to have any hope of winning. “I think they’ve focused on swing votes that are hard to win and neglected the Tory vote,” the person said.

But even the core Conservative vote the party should be able to bank on is ebbing in London too. Most of it used to be concentrated in a donut of suburbs surrounding inner London, but the donut is “eroding,” the Conservative MP quoted above lamented. 

Indeed, as more of the inner London population moves out to the suburbs, the suburban population gets pushed further out again. “The donut is, in many ways, only partly still in London,” said Hayward. “In some ways, the donut has moved out to the M25 [London’s orbital motorway].”

The Bailey campaign official admitted the Tories were at a “natural low” in London at the moment, and that the political landscape in the city meant the odds are stacked against them. “The Conservative Party has to fight to win elections in London,” the person said. “The base vote, as it were, is not large enough, really anywhere, for the Conservative Party to simply just hold its own and grace to victory.”

But there is still optimism with the campaign. “This is going to be a lot closer than people think,” the official said.

To have a hope of victory in the future, the party needs a stand-out pick for mayor. “The next Tory candidate has to be someone who has a quite clear, obvious independence,” the former Conservative official said. “I think London is still winnable but you definitely need the right person.” Bailey’s campaign declined a request for comment.

Khan splits opinion

While the landscape is tough for the Tories, the performance of their opponents counts too.

Some see Khan, the incumbent mayor, as an uninspiring candidate who has done little for London. He implemented the 24-hour Tube service and had a number of public spats with former U.S. President Donald Trump, but Kellner said even his supporters would struggle to name his signature achievements. 

Others are more enthusiastic. One London Labour activist said Khan was a good speaker and campaigner able to define his narrative against that of opponents. He has also managed to avoid scrapes and gaffes while in office. 

London Labour MP Clive Efford pointed out that Khan pushed through the London ultra-low emission zone despite opposition from drivers, adding: “Whether people agree with him or not they admire his steadfast determination to see things through.” The bottom line is: Londoners seem to like him.

Even Conservatives agree Khan is good at leaning into the culture wars on the liberal side, because London is a liberal city and the mayor doesn’t have to appeal to more socially conservative voters in the rest of the U.K. “Khan is in London, so Khan is in his element,” said the former Conservative official quoted above.

For the Tories, stoking culture wars against metropolitan viewpoints to appeal to northern voters could be damaging their chances in London. But the question is whether it’s worth fretting about.

The party picked up dozens of former Labour seats in the north of England at the 2019 election, thanks in large part to Brexit and to Labour being cast as the party for liberal elites. “Their loss of popularity in London is, from the national view, a price worth paying,” said Kellner. 

And of course, changing tack in London could put those northern gains at risk. “The only way they can campaign effectively in a way that would maximize their vote [in London] would be in ways that would alienate Tories in the midlands and the north,” he said. “So rather than go down that route, I think they’ve essentially given up on London.”