Paris Gourtsoyannis: Terror debate shows Tory weakness

After two leadership races, Jeremy Corbyn has for a third time confirmed himself to be a good campaigner

The debate on foreign policy and counterterrorism that started with Jeremy Corbyn’s speech last week in the wake of the Manchester bombing represented the election campaign in microcosm.

It put on show how the Conservatives have so far managed to turn their strengths into weaknesses in running a negative campaign short on detail and long on assertion.

Foreign affairs and security are not Corbyn’s strong suit. If the public know much about him, they know his personal views on nuclear weapons, Nato and the Northern Ireland conflict.

But as with his Chatham House speech before the atrocity in Manchester, in which he set out largely the same agenda against foreign military interventions, Corbyn put in a competent performance on an away pitch.

It is not beyond the pale to argue that regardless of how they were justified, the way wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya were executed left grave regional instability in their wake that has impacted European security.

That is the view of the former head of MI5, and it was once also the view of senior Conservatives including Boris Johnson and David Davis. It is a view the Labour leader also shares with a broad section of the British electorate.

In the middle of an election, perhaps it’s too much to expect a debate about how to respond to Islamist violence, even in the wake of tragic events that demand it.

So it wasn’t surprising to hear Corbyn’s speech denounced as an apology for Islamic extremism, but it was disappointing to hear the emptiest arguments used.

The worst of these was repeated several times by Ruth Davidson, but she wasn’t alone - it was made by Tory MPs, Conservative bloggers and even in these opinion pages.

“We’ve seen it in America in the Twin Towers attack, we’ve seen it in Sweden and Belgium who haven’t taken the same foreign policies decisions as us,” Davidson said of attacks by Islamist extremists. “We’ve seen it in France, who have sometimes taken the direct opposite foreign policy decisions to us.”

The three countries listed have been, or still are, involved in military operations in Afghanistan, against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, and in the Libyan civil war of 2011. The fact that the assertion has gone unchallenged raises the question of how the UK can ever have a serious debate about its foreign policy when we’re so uninterested in it.

There are plenty of good reasons to argue Corbyn is wrong to link British actions overseas with the risk of terrorism at home. For one thing, his argument suggests the West is the main target of extremist violence, when the full horror of Islamic State is visited on the people living in the parts of Syria and Iraq that they have occupied.

Minorities like the Yazidi have no foreign policy, yet they have suffered the worst of a campaign of violence, enslavement, rape and collective punishment.

But the choice of a hollow argument and a personal attack in response to Corbyn’s claims is symptomatic of a stuttering Conservative campaign.

The Tories failed to recognise that while the public had largely made up its mind about Corbyn in the turbulent two years of his leadership, Theresa May remained a largely unknown figure.

There was an outline drawn around her time as Home Secretary that was waiting to be filled in. The fact that yesterday’s relaunch focused on measures to tackle domestic violence shows Tory campaign chiefs knew this. But the empty slogans and tightly controlled image of a Lyndon Crosby campaign simply highlighted how brittle May is.

By contrast, Corbyn has for a third time confirmed himself to be what two leadership races already suggested: a good campaigner. As a result, a Tory strategy built on leadership has only served to shore up Corbyn’s dismal numbers in polling on who would make the best Prime Minister.

An ultra-loyal inner circle of May’s two chiefs of staff, Fiona Hill and Nick Timothy, supplemented only by Crosby, bought into the hype spun by sections of the media, who inflated May’s image in an exercise of Brexit hope over expectation.

When it came to writing a manifesto, it meant that May’s team believed she could seize with both hands one of the third rails of British politics - social care, second only to the NHS in its deadly voltage - without consulting her Cabinet, let alone the rest of her party, or indeed the country. The resulting U-turn spent the last of May’s spare “strong and stable” capital, and has helped bring Labour from 24 points behind to as little as 5. Tory sources are briefing that Labour could go ahead this week.

Out canvassing with a Tory candidate in a Scottish target seat the day after the manifesto launch, a voter came to the door full of praise for May’s brave social care policy. I wonder what he thinks now. An increased Conservative majority is still the likely outcome, even if talk of a 200-seat landslide has receded. And despite a relaunch, the reality is that May will have to cling to her damaged strategy.

For most people, this election remains a referendum on who should lead Brexit talks, and for now voters still choose May over Corbyn by two to one when asked to choose between them for that task. The strong and stable slogan may look weak and wobbly, but that message is the only thing left in the toolkit. In many policy areas, Corbyn now has a solid lead.

Despite her disaster on social care, May will also have to stick by older voters who are the Tories’ base, and are the only demographic that haven’t wobbled in the past week. She will hope the fact that Labour’s surge is built on an increase in the proportion of young people who say they’ll vote means it will come undone with low turnout on polling day.

Even if May gets her majority, pundits are calling this the worst general election campaign in living memory. With its negativity and bombast on issues like foreign policy, even in victory it risks alienating its supporters and energising its opponents. In Scotland, there was a name for that: Project Fear.