'Tory boats for votes - we'll head into this election based on a culture war'

11 March 2023 , 19:18

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Prime Minister Rishi Sunak (Image: PA)

I dunno how far you work in advance. I’ve got some picks for Cheltenham next week, and I’ve already sussed out how to get out of the country for the Coronation... but that’s about my limit.

There are people running round Westminster already planning for an election. About 18 months is the smart money.

You can tell campaigning has already started by this week’s antics. The Illegal Migration Bill, doomed to fail from birth.

A better name, in fact, would have been the Illegal Illegal Migration Bill as even on the front of it they admit it might not pass the lawyers.

Terrible, inhumane, awful bit of legislation – for all sorts of reasons. But above all, a really cheap electoral trick, which is a great indicator we’re up and running campaign-wise.

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What this Government is setting up to do is to try to revitalise the coalition of voters that backed Brexit.

There is polling out there that says 15- 20% of people are undecided. Quite the number, and this is the first real high-stakes attempt to go for them.

Lineker became embroiled in a row with Conservative Party MPs after tweeting his opposition to the government's Illegal Migration bill (Getty Images)

This bill, they reckon, will play well. It shouldn’t, but it might.

The sting though, is that opposing it – on grounds of ethics, morality, legality – will allow the Tories to frame Labour as part of the “activist blob” that stops anything happening.

Then we head into an election based fully on a culture war, and no one knows quite where it will end.

It’s a struggle for the Left to articulate any sort of pro-immigration argument. Always has been. It’s complicated and tricky to respond to simple slogans “Send Them Back”, “Lock Them Up” and “Stop the Boats” with some sensible, human arguments.

Suella Braverman and the Prime Minister revealed their plans to remove and ban asylum seekers from re-entry if they arrive in the UK through unauthorised means

At least Gary Lineker is speaking out. To be clear, he is comparing the language used about migrants and refugees to the 1930s – not suggesting that the Government is comparable to the Third Reich. Just the language.

He’s spot on. And the treatment he’s had at the hands of a paranoid BBC is shameful. At least his colleagues are showing their support.

Even the phrase “small boats” is reductive, but by far not the worst of the language being bandied about. “Invasion” is the most unpalatable so far.

Home Secretary Suella Braverman (Getty Images)

Anyways, these are the first shots in what is going to be a bitter and unpleasant campaign.

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Expect some sweeteners in the Budget next week. For what it’s worth, I found Mr Sunak’s speech so depressing I spent most of it trying to make the longest word I could out of the repellant Stop the Boats slogan on the front of the lectern.

Have a go. I got “osteopath” for nine, and “potatoes” for eight. “Tosspot” was my favourite though. Only seven, but somehow I prefer it.

Keir Mudie