Brexit has lost London for the Conservatives

The murder of Sarah Everard, a 33-year-old marketing executive who was abducted this month while walking home, has unleashed a tide of anxiety among Londoners about women’s safety, policing and leadership. Yet there is indifference about who should lead Britain’s capital, just 8 weeks before its mayoral election.

One candidate has drawn the wrong kind of attention. While the police were still searching for Everard, the Conservative’s Shaun Bailey took to social media to say “as a father and husband it breaks me to think that my wife and daughter have to live in fear in their own city”. One close friend, who was minded to vote for him, called the message “despicable”; a senior Tory party official described it as “desperate” and “very poor taste”.

On paper, Bailey’s candidacy has strong foundations: black, working-class and raised in an inner city home, he spent two decades as a youth worker. The 49-year-old was lauded as the one to beat Labour’s Sadiq Khan after a Tory drubbing that stirred up racial tensions in 2016. Yet, in a recent poll, just 25 per cent of voters supported Bailey, half the level of Khan.

Bailey has struggled to gain traction even within his party, which considered sacking him as their candidate. “Shaun is not a bad guy but he himself doesn’t know why he wants to be mayor,” says one veteran activist. “He’s got a great back-story, but the campaign has never got to grips with what it’s about. It’s only been defined as being against Sadiq.”

Bailey’s socially conservative pro-Brexit views are a tough sell for a liberal city in which 60 per cent backed Remain. But even for those who might be persuaded to vote Tory, he has said little of consequence. Khan is almost certain to gain a second term.

There is, however, a deeper Tory malaise that goes beyond Bailey. According to Tony Travers, director of the London School of Economics’ London research group, “the party has almost given up on London” with a decline that started in 1997. “Before that, the Tories were always competitive, particularly in the more affluent suburbs.”

There was an aberration of course: Boris Johnson. He beat Labour’s Ken Livingstone in 2008 and 2012. The Conservative party at that moment chimed with the capital: its modernisation project was in the ascendancy and Johnson projected the persona of a metropolitan liberal. Combined with strong campaigns and a celebrity appeal, he pulled off two victories.

Travers reckons it was Johnson’s Brexit that destroyed the party’s hopes for London. “Boris was broadly progressive as mayor. But the Conservatives haven’t figured out a way of winning in London against the backdrop of a government that is pro-Brexit and the party machine is focused on the north.”

Londoners face an uninspiring choice at a moment when strong leadership could help the city recover after the pandemic. Khan has been a competent if uninspiring mayor. His most notable achievement was the “London is Open” campaign, asserting the capital’s global status after Brexit. Yet he struggled to make the city’s case during the debate over the trade deal with Europe.

The problem may be the mayoralty itself, says Rory Stewart, the former Tory minister who withdrew from the race last year. “Boris and Sadiq turned it into a ceremonial role, where they often claimed not to have any power or money,” he says. “It’s very cunning for an incumbent, but it’s not true. London’s mayor has more powers than [the mayor of] New York and a GDP greater than a hundred odd countries.”

Stewart, who may run again, argues that City Hall needs a leader more dexterous in asserting power. “I found as prisons minister, it is remarkable what the system can do if you state ‘I am in charge’. Political roles are not defined by what’s on paper but what people with them are able to do.” 

Where the Tories might go after Shaun Bailey is unclear. A more liberal candidate, such as the former education secretary Justine Greening, may have a better shot. But to really challenge Labour, the party needs to find a way of chiming with richer liberal voters without losing support elsewhere in England. Otherwise the capital risks descending into a one-party city.

sebastian.payne@ft.com