by Jonathan Todd

Here with five questions about the next general election:

When will it be?

“I will probably win. I’m ready to be prime minister tomorrow,” Jeremy Corbyn told Grazia.

If the Tories thought Corbyn was going to win, they’d do everything possible to avoid an election, wouldn’t they?

They will also want to fight the next election when:

They have a new leader.

The economy is performing well.

Brexit is a ‘job done’. With the minimum of fuss.

There is a possibility that defeat for the government in the Commons on Brexit terms will precipitate an election. Equally, few Tory MPs – even Ken Clarke – would so vote if they thought that in doing so they were enabling PM Corbyn.

One way to manage this tension would be for Theresa May to pursue the form of Brexit – closer to Norway than Canada – for which there is a majority in the Commons. Her Chancellor will also reassure her that this is the way to deliver the best possible economy.

If Brexit becomes ever softer and more gradual, the date of the next election may recede into the future, potentially as far as June 2022.

Who will be the Tory leader?

If Norway feels too much like, to use the Foreign Secretary’s term, “a vassal state”, the Brexiteers might seek to eject Theresa May and install one of their own.

They lack, however, a convincing candidate, which may encourage them to reluctantly accept Norway as a staging post. They would have secured the UK’s exit from the EU, while creating a base from which a more complete separation might be achieved.

“The next Tory leader will be the person who has had the best six months before the contest,” one party grandee says. They will also be the person who best symbolises what the Tories want to be – a vehicle for renewed confidence and prosperity in a country outside the EU.

It is not clear that this is best personified by a Brexiteer – who feel too cranky and dusty. Amber Rudd, for instance, seems more at peace with herself and – though lacking “the necessary hashtags” – contemporary Britain. While she did not vote for Brexit in the referendum, she might, as a member of the government that delivered Brexit, be stomached by Brexiteer MPs and welcomed by party members looking for the best means possible of defeating Labour.

Who will be the Labour leader?

Jeremy Corbyn will be 73 in June 2022 – and it may take the Tories take this long to satisfy (or attempt to satisfy) the conditions that they are likely to want to see met before triggering an election.

If Corbyn were to lead Labour to victory in an election at that time, he’d become the oldest prime minister in British history. Another scenario, however, is Corbynism after Corbyn.

We hear, for example, rumours that Emily Thornberry has offered Seamus Milne a continued role in a Thornberry-led party in exchange for Momentum’s support in a Labour leadership election.

Whether Corbynism has the same appeal with a different front-person is unknown but – regardless of the veracity of these rumours and in spite of his revered status – it seems implausible that senior figures have not reflected on a post-Corbyn party.

What Brexit stage will have been reached?

“Nobody,” Oliver Letwin claims about the world after the end of the Article 50 period in March 2019, “is going to own Brexit or not own Brexit, or be pro-Brexit or anti-Brexit. Brexit will have happened, Brexit will be past history.”

But if we are Norway, Brexiteers will want to push for further detachment, while their opponents might dare to point out that we’d be better off as rule-makers in the EU, rather than rule-takers outside. Equally, if we are Canada, much political energy in the UK is likely to be focused upon bringing service sectors within the coverage of a deal that only covers goods.

Arguments – pace Letwin – about the UK and the EU seem likely to run well beyond March 2019. Nick Macpherson, former permanent secretary at the Treasury, underlines this:

“Trade agreements are long and complex and invariably take more than five years to agree. It is therefore very likely that the transitional period after the UK leaves the EU will last until 2024.”

How strong will traditional Tory (economic management) and Labour (public services) strengths be?

While a transitional period of the length envisaged by Macpherson would mean that the Tories will struggle to declare Brexit ‘job done’ this side of the next election, what impact this would have upon the Tory capacity to present themselves as competent economic managers is also crucial.

Many parts of the public sector – from the inequities of Universal Credit to the squalor of our prisons; from the shortage of GPs to the Treasury cuts that, according to an ex Tory MP, have crippled the justice system – are worryingly strained. Our capacity to provide these services with additional resources, however, is constrained by our economic performance – in turn, wrapped up with Brexit.

If this constraint is understood by the public, they might vote for the party that can do most to generate the economic growth to minimise it (which the Tories have traditionally liked to think is them), rather than the party whose hearts most bleed for resource-starved public services (which is usually Labour).

Corbyn can be forgiven for giving Grazia a simple, confident message but this parliament may contain more imponderables than this allows. And we may only be about a tenth of the way through it.

Jonathan Todd is Deputy Editor of Labour Uncut

Tags: Brexit, Emily Thornberry, General Election, Jeremy Corbyn, Jonathan Todd, Theresa May