The dying Tories’ Project Fear

For those with long memories, there is something familiar about this general election campaign. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it for a while, but then I realised: It is all getting to be very like the Remain campaign before the 2016 referendum.

If you can bear to think back to those dark days, come with me. It all started off with the then-chancellor warning that Brexit would be bad for the British economy. And in fact, the Treasury calculations in April of 2016, that the long-term cost would be 6% of British GDP by 2030, now look remarkably accurate.

But then George Osborne began to panic. I think he sensed that Remain was losing the argument and in real danger of losing the vote too.

His solution was a disaster – Osborne started putting out ever more dire warnings of the risks of leaving. With only a few weeks to go until the vote, hysteria set in. Byt the end of the campaign, he was claiming that if Vote Leave won, he would have to have an emergency budget and slash spending on the NHS, schools and the police and increase income and inheritance tax in order to tackle a sudden “£30 billion black hole” in the government’s finances.

Sound familiar?

We now have Rishi Sunak claiming that Labour would “impoverish every generation”. I am only surprised that there won’t be new taxes on graveyards and childbirth too, so that past and future generations can be impoverished too.

Then there is the danger of a “supermajority”, whatever that is. Under the British constitution, a party with a majority of one can do pretty much anything it wants – there is therefore no such thing as a “supermajority”. Oh, and I didn’t hear the Tories worry about having too many seats before they crushed Jeremy Corbyn in 2019.

Now Sunak is claiming that Labour would cause “irreversible damage within just 100 days of coming to power”, which is quick work. The Tories also say Vladimir Putin is looking forward to a Labour victory. When Russia worked so hard to back the Brexit campaign, why they would be looking forward to a new PM who wants to forge closer ties with Europe – including a strengthened security agreement designed to thwart Putin – is not clear.

Then the Tories now claim that Labour will take the UK back into the EU, via the back door. Since the EU wouldn’t have us if we went on bended knee and there is no back door this is an impossibility. Although if Remain voters believe it, the prospects for Labour would improve even further, so the PM should be careful about that one.

The problem with all this stuff, as George Osborne discovered far too late, is that the electorate can smell fear and sense panic. They might be willing to accept some warning about Labour’s tax plans but when the Conservative Party starts running around like Chicken Little and claiming the sky is falling in, they have lost.

Some electors may be worried about Labour, but they are not terrified, and Labour has spent years making sure not to terrify anyone.

The people who are really scared are the Tories. They have failed totally over the last 14 years and deep down they know it, but they also have an even deeper conviction, that they are entitled to power.

Those two irreconcilable factors are about to clash head-on, and failure will trump entitlement, panic mongering is not going to change that, in fact as George Osborne found out, it makes it worse.

People do not vote for Chicken Little.