When it comes to ‘small boats’, the Tories need to own the narrative

One of the most dispiriting parts of political life is seeing parties and governments home in on a particular powerless and marginalised group in society and attempting to make them the focus of voter anger.

We are seeing it at the moment with asylum seekers, with home secretary Suella Braverman being unusually blatant in her use of the language of “invasion” to paint the occupants of rubber dinghies crossing the English Channel as a threat to the nation’s vital interests.

Right-wing strategists see such issues as gifts, allowing them to “drive a wedge” between themselves and their opponents.

The belief is that, by repeatedly drawing attention to an intractable problem, they can garner support from across the spectrum by announcing hardline tactics and paint anyone objecting to them as soft on the supposed threat. If the tactics work, all well and good; but if they don’t, it just proves how massive the problem is and how great the need for more hardline action.

So Braverman keeps the issue in the headlines by demanding an “all-government approach”, speaks of her “dream” of putting migrants on the plane to Rwanda and briefs favoured papers that she is in talks with other far-flung locations that might be willing to take in the asylum seekers.

But polling guru Sir John Curtice has questioned whether the approach is working with the small boats issue.

In a briefing to journalists at Westminster this week, he suggested that pushing the subject up the agenda is politically inept of Ms Braverman and the Conservatives because it reminds the voters of their failure to deal with it.

He described the small boats as an “achilles heel” issue for the Tories, both because it is an area where they are highly unlikely to succeed and because it is arguably a situation they have themselves played a large part in creating.

Voters angered by the sight of bedraggled men, women and children arriving on the beaches of Kent are as likely to blame the government as they are to back them. If they want tougher action, they may well be drawn to Nigel Farage and the new political party he is constantly threatening to launch.

And others will view the scenes and conclude that the government is either nasty or incompetent or both.

When Ms Braverman declares that the system is “broken”, voters are likely to retort with a line that comes straight out of the Labour playbook: “Well, who broke it? You’ve been in charge for the last 12 years.”

Setting aside the rights and wrongs of the migration issue, the problem Curtice has identified boils down to what Tony Blair used to call “owning the narrative”.

Ahead of his 1997 landslide, the former Labour leader was guided by the idea that the key to electoral success is ensuring that the subjects at the centre of public debate are ones where you have a strong and positive message to sell.

For him, as long as the narrative revolved around education and the NHS, he was winning. For Boris Johnson, the same was true of Brexit.

For Rishi Sunak, though, focusing public minds on immigration means the debate is dominated by an issue where his government is palpably failing and which reminds voters of the least savoury aspects of his party.

For Curtice, the small boats are an issue from which the Tories should be trying to distract attention. On his analysis, the only “wedge” it is likely to drive is between Sunak and his chances of electoral victory.

Yours,

Andrew Woodcock

Political editor