Conservative leadership candidate of the week is Philip Hammond. Well, it is his turn, and he has been in clover since the election, relishing his transition from soon-to-be-sacked to impregnable chancellor. His Mansion House speech on Tuesday last week was a triumphant brandishing of the spreadsheet at his fallen or diminished foes in Downing Street.
Over the weekend, there has been much gossip about a supposed “dream ticket” strategy whereby Hammond, supported by David Davis, would take the Tory helm and steady the ship until the party’s next generation is ready to assume the mantle of leadership.
There are two immediate problems with this plan. First, no self-respecting politician devotes a career to constituency surgeries, late-night votes and red boxes at 1am in the hope of being hailed one day as a “caretaker leader”. To be told “you’ll do for now” is not much of an endorsement.
Second, I do not see Davis as anyone’s running mate – which I mean as a compliment. He gave serious thought to running in 2016 and would be changing the habits of a lifetime if he were not at least to keep his options open in these turbulent times.
It is said that, at 68, the Brexit secretary is too old for the top job. Since Jeremy Corbyn is the same age, and has just conquered Glastonbury, this would seem an otiose objection. More to the point, Davis is a fitness fanatic, who cannot see a sharp incline without ascending it. I would like to watch some of his younger critics keep up with him on a fell walk.
What Hammond and Davis do share is an understanding that the outcome of the Brexit talks is much more important than the identity of the next Conservative leader. When, precisely, Theresa May bows to the inevitable, who replaces her, and by what means: all this will do much to shape the outcome of the next election. But the deal on Britain’s departure from the EU – if there is a deal – will determine the nation’s global status and trajectory for decades to come.
Like Donald Tusk, I am a fan of John Lennon, and have dreamed of a world in which Brexit might be reversed. But one of the few certainties delivered by the election was the dashing of this dream. Both main parties were unambiguously committed not only to leaving the EU but the single market. We are on our way out, and that’s that.
Labour’s Chuka Umunna has performed noble work in trying to square the circle and explore structures whereby the UK might remain part of le marché unique. But I cannot realistically see any party getting away with a deal in which Britain remained subject to the jurisdiction of the European court of justice.
Indeed, the persistent distinction drawn between “hard” and “soft” Brexit seems to me a rhetorical device rather than a reflection of reality. A better way of framing the argument is to ask whether our negotiators’ priority will be to reduce immigration; or to protect prosperity and jobs.
Identity versus economy? Xenophobia versus trade? This is a real choice and an unavoidable one, whatever some Brexiteers may say about cake retention and consumption.
There is no doubt where Hammond stands in this debate. As he put it last week, reinforcing what he has long said: “When the British people voted last June, they did not vote to become poorer or less secure. They did vote to leave the EU. And we will leave the EU. But it must be done in a way that works for Britain. In a way that prioritises British jobs, and underpins Britain’s prosperity.”
Less appreciated is the pragmatism of Davis’s position. Routinely caricatured as a hardline rightwinger, he is, in fact, fully aware of the economic risks of insufficiently porous borders. He grasps that his task is to translate a fundamentally emotional decision – the vote for Brexit – into a technically viable transnational structure. Pressed on the need for extra workers in particular regions and sectors, he has said: “Whatever we do has to be flexible enough to meet these requirements.”
In spite of his leadership of Vote Leave, Boris Johnson has long been a champion of immigration – often the most outspoken in the Conservative party. As I disclosed in March, even the arch-Brexiteer Liam Fox has been heard to say: “We mustn’t do anything that threatens prosperity.” Indeed, I doubt that the Tories’ absurd pledge to reduce net immigration to tens of thousands a year would have survived in the party’s manifesto had May not been its leader.
There is some evidence that voters’ priorities are shifting, too. Before the election, the polls generally suggested that immigration curbs were their prime concern in the Brexit negotiations. But a YouGov survey in the Times last week found that 58% now believe that Britain should trade freely with the EU, even if the consequence is continued immigration by its citizens – versus 42% who took the contrary view.
One must be wary of confirmation bias, especially where polls are concerned. Those of us who regard population mobility as a cultural good as well as an economic necessity are not yet on the winning side of the argument.
As last year’s pro-Brexit campaigns showed, it is easy to stoke up hostility to immigration – especially so when voters are feeling economically stretched, pummelled by change, and unconsulted by those who govern them. Politicians who blame immigrants for the true pressures of modern life – the discontents of globalisation, the challenge of automation, the poison of extremism, the disruptive impact of digital technology – are taking the coward’s way out. What is courageous about directing popular anger at the very people – often vulnerable, low-paid and poorly housed – who keep the economy, NHS and social care system afloat?
The emotions that drove the Brexit vote may flare up again at any time, and there is never a shortage of populist rightwingers delighted to fan the flames. If the last year has a coherent lesson, it is that the only constant is volatility.
So let us put it no more forcefully than this. There are encouraging signs that the political class and public are gathering gradually around the proposition that prosperity matters more than nativism; that post-Brexit Britain will continue to be a pluralist, heterogeneous society in which migration is managed rather than abhorred. In other words: proceed with caution, but with optimism, too.