I’m backing Britain to reject this nonsense

The story ran on Saturday, when much of the country was fixated on England’s first game in the World Cup. The story ran on the first left-hand page of The Guardian’s main section, a notorious “graveyard” slot in any paper where stories can be missed. Perhaps you missed it. It certainly received no follow-up in the mainstream media.

But here is what the Conservative minister Damian Green had been recorded telling a Tory Reform Group conference a few days earlier:

“We all know that there are people and groups in this country who have become completely disengaged with the Conservative party – we do appallingly among any ethnic minority group…

“If ethnic minority groups had voted Conservative on the same scale that white Anglo-Saxons had, then we would have had a majority of 60 or 70. It makes a huge difference, so we have got to do much better amongst those groups,” Green said.

This was good advice. But if you had picked up yesterday’s Mail on Sunday you will have been greeted by this front page headline: “Cameron tells UK Muslims: be more British”. It does not look as though the police minister’s warnings have been taken very seriously, yet.

This lunging after something called “British values”, supported only by the repetition of the vaguest and most generalised, non nation specific characteristics, looks like the latest desperate ploy to win back Ukip supporters. Dr Johnson declared over two centuries ago that “patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel”, and he has not been disproved yet. Most of these flimsy and unconvincing pro-British campaigns, such as the “I’m Backing Britain” one of 1968, end after a brief and utterly ineffectual period of time.

But it is the political idiocy of this empty “British values” talk that is most striking. As Green explained in his comments to the TRG, the Conservatives should be trying to build a bigger coalition of support by sending a more inclusive message to the country. Implying that Muslims and, by extension, other minority groups living here might be insufficiently British has the opposite effect. It labels people as “other”. It turns them into what psychologists call an “out group”. It declares: “You are not like us.” As canvassing strategies go you have to admit this is a novel approach.

This seems to be another part of Lynton Crosby’s core vote strategy. I have discussed here before how harmful this approach might be for the Tories’ long term prospects. While the Newark bylection was a good result for the Conservatives it was also an exception. In national voting intention polls there is little sign of Tory support rising thanks to the return of returning Ukippers.

So here is the paradox in British politics at the moment: we have an outwardly confident Conservative party making great claims about economic recovery and likely electoral success, while at private gatherings and behind closed doors wiser figures betray their nervousness. And a Labour party which, favoured by a series of politically convenient events – the lack of boundary reform, the implosion of the LibDems, party unity, and the failure of economic growth to be felt by the public – ought to be quietly confident about its chances of becoming (at least) the largest party after the next election, but which is in fact a bit depressed, nervous, and beating itself up over unfortunate or botched photo-ops.

It is almost as if the silly season has broken out a couple of months early. The truth is, I fear, that the next 11 months will turn out to be one long extended silly season as far as politics is concerned. I put it down to our great British sense of humour.