Labour made plans for Jeremy Corbyn to travel to a string of marginal constituencies calling for an immediate general election if the party won last week’s vote of no confidence, a party insider has said.
The intention would have been for Corbyn to tour seats in areas such as the east and West Midlands and Scotland, even though in theory the Tories – or even Labour themselves – would have had 14 days to create a new government at Westminster.
“Jeremy loves campaigning,” said the insider. “Obviously he would have been at Westminster when necessary, but otherwise he would have been travelling around the country visiting key seats.”
While the party lost the vote in parliament, the outlines of Labour’s strategy shed light on its likely approach if it does succeed in forcing an election in the coming months – which the party still hopes will be possible.
Even though the Tories won the vote 325 to 306, after the DUP backed Theresa May, Labour had already committed to the first step of its plan, with Corbyn giving a speech in Hastings, where cabinet minister Amber Rudd has narrow majority of 346.
Labour also released what would have been the first of its party election broadcasts, the atmospheric Our Country film shot largely in Durham, directed by Simon Baker and narrated by Corbyn – although significantly, that film avoided any mention of Brexit.
Pollsters argue that the campaigns could have a decisive impact if an election were to take place. Joe Twyman, a co-founder of Deltapoll, said: “Polling is showing that the two main parties are roughly neck and neck at around 38% – neither side would go into a campaign in the position it would like to secure a majority victory.”
Few Conservatives believe that May has any enthusiasm for a snap general election, although she could be forced into one if she loses the support of the DUP.
Michael Gove, the environment secretary, and Jeremy Hunt, the foreign secretary, are among those who have advocated the idea, according to another cabinet minister, where Conservatives would hope to exploit Labour ambiguities over whether the party wants to exit the European Union.
But May is bruised by the disastrous 2017 campaign that cost her overall majority, brought intense criticism of her personal style, and helped create the current deadlock. “I am confident that is not a prospect we relish,” a Downing Street insider added.
Nevertheless, at the beginning of the week, Sir Mick Davis, the Conservative party’s chief executive, put the party on an election footing and told staff the Tories need to have the “resources in place” in case the prime minister is defeated in the Commons.
For both main parties, Brexit policy would represent a source of difficulty. Conservatives insiders say the party would be “tick box ready” to fight an election, but there are questions whether it would be possible to get candidates to fight on an agreed position, given the divisions over May’s deal.
Some fear a repeat of the Conservatives’ disastrous 1997 campaign, where John Major wanted to retain the option of membership of the euro, but encouraged by Rupert Murdoch’s Times, candidates published their own personal declarations ruling it out.
Labour, meanwhile, would prefer to move the conversation elsewhere, and is already making the argument that the problems facing the country go beyond Brexit – whilst accusing May’s government of being too narrowly focused on a single issue.
At his speech last week in Hastings, Corbyn trailed the intended argument. “I believe that the real divide in our country is not between leave and remain,” he said, arguing that the split was between those “do the work, create the wealth and pay their taxes” and those who “set the rules, reap the rewards and dodge their taxes”.
But some second referendum campaigners argue that the party, much more reliant than the Conservatives on activists prepared to work the doorstep, will need to embrace a policy that is more clearly anti-Brexit to keep the wider party on board.
Michael Chessum, a Corbyn supporter and national organiser of Another Europe is Possible, said: “If Labour goes into the election promising to deliver Brexit, its grassroots will be demoralised and it will lose. Any viable manifesto must include a route to remain.”
Pollsters say the Conservatives are particularly vulnerable in London, where 60% voted remain. But Labour’s equivocations over Brexit may also hurt it in Scotland, according to some worried party insiders, who fear that the party, which holds seven seats north of the border, could lose further ground to the SNP.
Faiza Shaheen, one of 100 Labour candidates selected in target seats, is taking on Iain Duncan Smith in Chingford and Woodford Green, where the Tory incumbent has a majority of 2,438. She and a dozen activists are out every Saturday, canvassing and leafleting in an attempt to remove the Brexiter.
Brexit does not come up on the doorstep unprompted, Shaheen said, but argued that the issue “muddies the water”, complicating an anti-austerity message. She added, in a remark that she acknowledged might not please the party hierarchy, that she wanted the party to promise voters “a final say” in the form of a second referendum.
For both sides, an election would represent a high-stakes gamble. An analysis released this week by Onward, a centre-right think tank, showed that 97 constituencies were won in 2017 by a margin of 5% or less – nearly double the 2015 equivalent of 51.
That was accompanied by an article in the Sun warning that the Tories were “woefully underprepared” for a snap election, prompting Labour strategists to conclude that the risk of an election was intended to frighten rebel MPs into voting for May’s Brexit deal to prevent Corbyn moving into Downing Street.
