Thoughts on the London Mayoral Election

The ‘One Nation Tory’ brand is a crafty attempt to remodel the Conservative Party as the party for all Britons. It is the party that now cares for the poor and vulnerable, not just the white and wealthy, Cameron and Osbourne are keen to tell us. Of all Tory politicians, it is with great irony then that the mild-mannered libertarian Zac Goldsmith is the one to bring back the ‘Nasty Party’ label to the Conservative Party.

“This election was not without controversy”, declared an exhausted Sadiq Khan in his victory speech, confronting at first opportunity the repellent campaign led by his opponent. “And I’m so proud that London has today chosen hope over fear and unity over division. I hope that we will never be offered such a stark choice again. Fear does not make us safer, it only makes us weaker and the politics of fear is simply not welcome in our city.”

Zac Goldsmith stood behind his victor, his arms dangling down languidly like a marionette abandoned by its puppeteer. A faint look of embarrassment ran across his face. Sadiq deserves plenty of sympathy for being on the receiving end of a relentlessly racist smear campaign. But Zac doesn’t deserve all the blame.

It was the hero of last year’s Conservative general election victory, Lynton Crosby, that was hired to take charge of Zac’s campaign. Crosby’s right-wing dog-whistle brand of politics has been employed on several previous occasions by the Conservatives. The Daily Mail reported that Crosby, when running Boris Johnson’s successful 2008 Mayoral campaign, told Boris to concentrate on traditional Tory voters instead of chasing “fucking Muslims.” Crosby was the brains behind the brutal attack on Ed Miliband during the last general election when it was said that: “Miliband stabbed his own brother in the back to become Labour leader. Now he is willing to stab the United Kingdom in the back to become prime minister.”

He is known as a “master of the dark arts” and “an evil genius” for good reason.

Zac Goldsmith’s campaign was not one of his own making but one orchestrated directly from Number 10. It was an act of desperation from Zac’s camp to dedicate the final phase of the campaign to portraying Sadiq as a security risk and a terrorist sympathiser. In one Tory pamphlet under the heading ‘The Risk Of A Corbyn-Khan experiment’, David Cameron described the policies of “Jeremy Corbyn’s candidate Sadiq Khan as “’dangerous’”. If Khan won, Cameron said, “Londoners will become lab rats in a giant political experiment”. Zac’s own column for the Mail on Sunday ran with the headline: “Are we really going to hand the world’s greatest city to a Labour Party that thinks terrorists are its friends?”

Anita Vasisht, a lawyer, found the campaign so unpalatable that she filed a police report arguing it may constitute incitement to racial and religious hatred, both crimes in Britain.

Crosby’s puppeteering robbed Zac Goldsmith of his authenticity. Close family struggled to recognize the Zac Goldsmith on the podium behind his victor. Jemima Goldsmith admitted that her brother’s campaign did not reflect who she knew her brother to be.

Zac did not begin his career like this. His policy stances prior to the Mayoral elections were principled, progressive and respectable. He gained a reputation for being an ardent environmentalist and a liberal democrat; he was a vocal opponent to the third runway at Heathrow Airport and an admirer of Swiss-style referendum politics.

He began this contest as the favourite, promising to be the greenest Mayor London has ever had. He ended it like Pinocchio with a nose that continued to grow because of all the fibs he was forced to tell.

If only he was allowed to focus purely on policy rather than dabble in the dark arts. Perhaps then his views on climate change would have won over a larger portion of the green vote. Perhaps his Brexit views could have tempted the UKIP-inclined. Perhaps his opposition of the third runway would have improved his performance in the South West of the city. Perhaps this maverick could have even one day carried the torch for the One-Nation Tories?

Instead, attempts from the very top of Tory Headquarters were made to portray Sadiq Khan as an extremist Muslim. In doing so they once again made the dangerous mistake of conflating in the minds of the public religious conservatism with violent extremism. The politics of fear and division promoted by Crosby and the Conservatives threaten to undermine community cohesion in one of the most electorally diverse cities in the world. Such insidious tactics may cause an irreparable rift with the Muslim community.

So much for the One Nation Tories.